I grew up in a rural agriculture family, where my father and uncles possessed a joint piece of land that many households in our villages do not have. Though ours was a small land-owning family, we always faced a cash-flow problem and even sometimes food shortage and hunger. Every crop season my father would hope for better times; that season never came – till I moved to the city and started working.
This situation is similar to how it goes with Pakistan. We attach hopes with every new government and then wait for the next and the next and the next. One must be hopeful, but experience shows otherwise since our hopes never materialize.
That Pakistan is in a difficult situation is an enduring statement – but with no roadmap and critical reflection of what went wrong and why, who is responsible and how to fix shortcomings, we face a big challenge. There are no consequences for wrongdoings, big or small, which has just encouraged more wrongs. Mere sermons have not helped and will not help in the future either.
There are expectations from the new government to be met within limited fiscal space. Let hope triumph over fear. How do we do that? There are a few actions which neither require rocket science nor massive resources. A robust governance mechanism, strengthened transparency, and accountability can bring some relief.
People cannot wait till the major macroeconomic policy reforms are undertaken and bear fruits that may take decades. This includes improvement of the fiscal situation through progressive taxation and by controlling wasteful expenditure, achieving trade balance, and expanding exports, controlling the losses in state-owned enterprises, and filling the black hole of utility companies and removing massive inefficiencies in commodity operations.
The prevalence of widespread poverty is a taint on the conscience of those who rule. It is a denial of the fundamental rights of the people. It must be the foremost important goal of any government to eliminate all forms of absolute poverty and mobilize all stakeholders to achieve this aim. This is possible and many countries have within a few decades lifted millions out of poverty.
Uncontrolled inflation is an indirect consumption tax disproportionately affecting the poor and pushing the poor people further down into deep poverty. This is the single most contributing factor in poverty. Rising energy prices and their impact on economic competitiveness to create jobs is also another major reason. This is especially so in small businesses which are a major sector for job creation. Major macro-economic reforms are necessary but will take time to bring results; some short-term measures are needed to arrest poverty and bring relief.
Poor governance, the rent-seeking behaviour of public institutions and the lack of political and bureaucratic determination to improve public services and tackle poverty are factors that aggravate poverty.
The new elected governments at the federal and provincial levels will be presenting their budget priorities in the next two months. Our governance challenge does not require massive fiscal resources and the following steps could bring dividends:
First off, we need to end the ‘bhatta’ culture within public institutions. Extortion by public institutions has become a new normal. A recent example is excess charging by power distribution companies. There is harassment of small businesses in the purview of implementation of laws, and selective targeting if you don’t pay. These kinds of practices discourage business, creating huge inefficiencies. Ending the bhatta culture requires strong institutional governance, transparency, citizen engagement and better complaint handling mechanisms.
We need to ease the administrative processes. It is hard to get an electricity meter without paying – even in Islamabad. Otherwise, one would have to spend the same amount on back-and-forth trips to multiple offices. It is even difficult to get any legal document from the CDA without paying. Electricity and gas companies and even the even tax administration are money-making machines for their employees on top of other privileges such as free plots and electricity units that they enjoy.
Facilitating citizens from these bureaucratic hurdles and harassment will free up time, efforts, and resources. This will not require a big investment but a strong will to break this mafia-like institutional mechanism.
We must control profiteering and measurement deficits. Inflation is not only caused by real market factors but also poor governance and a profiteering model pursued at different levels. This hurts the public, especially low-income people, but benefits a few traders who are even out of the tax network. Nothing special happened a week before Ramazan as prices of essential commodities jumped; it was just a matter of excess profiteering. There is no mechanism to control prices, let alone the quality and measurement of essential items sold. There is a network of vested profiteers, and breaking this will benefit the public with the least cost. This is not an investment project to develop feasibilities and project documents; these are administrative measures.
There is also a need to ensure time-bound response and one-window operations. If laws are not implementable, they must be repealed – otherwise, they need to be implemented across the board. Keeping laws but not implementing them provides a permanent window for abuse, extortion, and selective use by authorities for personal gains. There is also no timeline to fulfil any service request, action on a complaint and no accountability for the responsible person or institutions if even nothing happens at the end. The only mantra is keeping the bosses happy at all levels.
Health and education are the two most important services that have a positive impact on poverty reduction. Investment is needed in these sectors to fill the gap in facilities and human resources. But the existing facilities and personnel are not producing the desired results.
If mobilized and motivated, the existing workforce – though a daunting task – has immense potential for change. This is not capital-intensive activity but more an administrative decision, strengthening accountability, ending the ‘sifarish’ culture and untying the performance of these departments from political loyalties.
The writer is an Islamabad-based environmental and human rights activist.