Long-term planning

While addressing the groundbreaking ceremony of the Tarbela Hydropower 5th Expansion project on August 12, Prime Minister Imran Khan said that water reservoir projects were not constructed in the past due to a lack of long-term planning. One believes that his statement is also valid for other infrastructure, construction and economic projects. In the past, the implementation of multiple five-year economic plans has played a crucial role in the development of the country. The first (1955-1960) and second (1960-65) five-year plans are still referred to as the roadmap adopted by South Korea to achieve rapid economic progress that placed it among the list of newly industrialised countries in a short period of time. Today, South Korea is the world’s 11th largest economy. It is unfortunate that the pattern of planning in Pakistan was changed in 1998, and since then the nation has not seen any integrated and comprehensive long-term national plan. Indeed, it suited to the agenda of successive governments to come up with short-term plans or ‘visions’. The formulation and the subsequent implementation of short-term development plans have undoubtedly resulted in slow economic progress and failed to achieve cherished goals in agriculture, investment and other sectors. Since 1998, however, there has been no integrated industrial policy at the national level.

Another factor for poor planning is that higher officers – including the deputy chairman of Planning Commission – were appointed, with some exceptions, in later years on personal whims instead of on merit. Iconic figures of economic history were generally succeeded by mediocre bureaucrats and politicians without relevant qualifications or experience.

Hussain Siddiqui

Islamabad