Ravi City

It is very worrying to see the prime minister talk about yet another big project, after the Mohmand Dam and the Diamer-Basha dam. Ravi City is a very lucrative project, but what it practically is doing is investing money in order to motivate the people to spend on housing.

Now, the issue is very complex, and economists are in a better position to explain, but what I gather is that we are not creating money, but asking people to spend. In order to create money, we have to go towards something like industrialization or some process of money addition. And, of course, exports. If we can't, the value of the Pakistani rupee is going to dive even further. What do we expect to achieve out of this big project? The only thing that we are planning to achieve, probably, is to motivate the Pakistanis working abroad to send money to Pakistan: they are already sending as much as they can. How is the nation going to pay for all the help and subsidy the government has promised to the big investors. Basically, what we are doing is exactly what the sugar and wheat mafias did earlier. Let big investors earn and let the poor subsidize their earning, by paying through their nose for what the big investors looted. What we should do instead is promote industry and value addition, and then let people invest their money in safe housing projects.

Irfan U Khattak

Abbottabad

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