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Thursday March 28, 2024

PML-N govt sluggish in initiating economic reforms

IslamabadA latest report indicated that the Nawaz-led ruling party has still not initiated the massive economic reforms as it pledged in its election manifesto for 2013 general elections. According to the report compiled by Policy Research Institute of Market Economy (Prime), the PML-N has received a passing 51.1 percent score

By our correspondents
August 02, 2015
Islamabad
A latest report indicated that the Nawaz-led ruling party has still not initiated the massive economic reforms as it pledged in its election manifesto for 2013 general elections.
According to the report compiled by Policy Research Institute of Market Economy (Prime), the PML-N has received a passing 51.1 percent score on the basis of its economic performance from January to June 2015.
The 5th tracking report titled “Loosing all its marbles” tracked the implementation of the economic agenda as per PML-N’s own election manifesto with the help of a ‘scorecard’ that allocated scores on a range of 0 to 10 to 92 targets reflecting the economic promises made by the present ruling party in three areas—economic revival, energy security and social protection.
It stated that the average score in economic revival stood at 3.8 as compared to 4.6 in the 4th , 4.33 in the 3rd, 4.47 in the 2nd and 3.17 in the 1st tracking report.
In the energy security, the PML-N government earned a score of 4.4, which was 2.2 percent lower than score in the 4th report, 12 percent higher than the score in the 3rd and one percent better than in the 2nd and 6 percent higher than the 1st report. Lastly in social protection its average score is 7.13 as compared to 6.5 in the 4th, 6.25 in the 3rd, 6.5 in the 2nd and 6 in the 1st report.
Out of the 57 components included in economic revival only 17 got a score of 5 or more. The star performers in this area were infrastructure projects, improving transport and communications and energy sector investments earning a score of 8, 8 and 7.5 out of 10 each. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has paved the way for the massive investments in infrastructure and transport projects.
In energy security, only 10 out of 32 components were able to get a score of 5 or more. Under this area, developing alternative renewable energy achieved the highest score of 8.75 due to the steps taken by the government to promote solar and wind projects by curbing import duties and developing clear policy guidelines.
This was followed by ending of cross subsidy to power distribution companies (Discos) where the government reduced the amount of the subsidy and earned a score of 7.5. Another better performing target was setting up LNG terminal and coal transportation facilities, which got a score of 7.
Under the energy security, one of the most ambitious promises made by the PML-N was on creating a separate Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources by merging two ministries, i.e. Water and Power, and Petroleum and Natural Resources. Since no progress was made in this regard, a zero score was awarded.
Like the previous reports, the performance of the PML-N government in the Social Protection outshone its performance in the others two areas. It significantly increased allocation to Benazir Income Support Programme and set aside Rs102 billion in the current budget as opposed to Rs97 billion last year. Furthermore 1.33 percent of GDP has been allocated to social protection this year as compared to one percent last year, which brings the government one step closer to achieving its target of spending 2 percent of GDP on it.