PRIME Minister Imran Khan on Thursday said his vision for a strong Pakistan was revival of industries for wealth creation, to be spent on the uplift of underprivileged segments in a welfare-oriented society. Speaking at ‘Breakfast at Davos’ on the sidelines of World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort, the Prime Minister shared his vision about Pakistan’s progress and related subjects including strategic vision, fighting corruption, poverty alleviation and geopolitical balance.
There is no doubt that the Prime Minister has a clear vision on how to take Pakistan forward on the road to progress and prosperity and in fact, he has also launched some initiatives that have the potential to contribute towards this goal. However, the real problem is integration of these ideas and fast-tracked implementation of the policies and programmes unfold by the Government on different occasions. This is because trickle-down effect of these visionary ideas and plans is not so far visible leading to frustration among people. The PM has a point in saying that foreign debts by previous governments resulted in putting undue pressure on common man but his own government ended up in adding record debt burden in one year. It was heartening to hear from Imran Khan that he would soon take up the matter with stakeholders on how to reduce burden on electricity consumers. One fails to understand how this is going to be achieved when the Government has committed with the IMF to raise the electricity tariff periodically and there is also a proposal for three-fold increase in television license fee that too would be added to the power bill. The Prime Minister has highlighted that Pakistan’s large human resource, its copper, gold and coal reserves and the most fertile land gave the country an edge to make progress, provided correct use of technology and advanced means. It is hoped that he would have a brain-storming session with his close aides and experts to make a firm beginning towards that end starting from the coming budget.
