In his address to the nation to mark completion of one hundred days of the Coalition Government, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has recounted achievements of his administration expressing optimism that the country was heading for a positive direction and a change for better was imminent. He referred to new package that government is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and pledged that its faithful implementation would pave the way for a goodbye to such programmes in future.
The PM also laid stress on austerity measures that his government has either taken or proposes to initiate in coming months to save billions, vowing that ministries, departments and institutions that are mere burden on national exchequer, would be closed after a committee headed by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb presents its report on the subject within next two months. While taking credit for downward trends in inflationary pressure, Shehbaz Sharif promised further measures to keep providing relief to people and bringing down the inflation, expanding investments and providing opportunities of higher education to the youth. The Prime Minister has reasons to be optimistic as things have started improving despite a series of unpopular measures that previous and incumbent Coalition Government had to initiate to avert a sovereign default and lay sound foundations for socio-economic revolution in the country. He rightly pointed out that prudent policies launched by his government yielded positive results and now economy was gradually stabilising.
As inflation was the number one concern of the people of Pakistan, he pointed out that it has come down from 38% last year to 12% now, providing much-needed relief to the masses. In fact, situation would have improved further provided government exercised proper monitoring to ensure trickledown effect of the downward revision in the prices of POL products and stability of exchange rate during the last few months. The Prime Minister acknowledged that steps taken by government to tackle ‘storm of inflation’ were not enough and hopefully this realisation would form the basis for more but sustainable relief, which is directly linked to government policies and decisions. Ahead of the IMF programme, government has increased base electricity tariff, which would not only affect families but also entire economy of the country as the tariff has become unbearable and unreasonable. Similarly, taxes proposed in the new budget, especially on food items, would trigger another wave of inflation in coming months, eroding purchasing power of the consumers further. It is, however, laudable that Prime Minister has pledged to make the new IMF programme as the last one. This commitment augurs well but much depends on government ability to take steps to help the country stand on its own feet. Similar promises were also made in the past but loans were used for unproductive programmes, projects and nothing done to benefit the country except increasing its burden of loans.
As for austerity measures, the previous Coalition Government of Shehbaz Sharif initiated some of them yet these could not make any worthwhile impact as government lacked the will to implement many of the otherwise doable recommendations. There is no doubt that some of the ministries and departments are doing almost nothing while many others deserve to be wound up as their subjects stand devolved to the provinces under 18th amendment in the Constitution. We hope that Austerity Committee would make a realistic assessment of the entire situation and decisions would not be taken on sole criteria of saving money but whether or not a ministry or institution was engaged in public service as per its mandate. It is also a reality that investment climate has improved a lot due to clear-headed policies being pursued by government in line with the guidelines and ground work done by Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC). Saudi Arabia and the UAE have already committed to make substantial investment in different sectors of Pakistan’s economy whereas Prime Minister has revealed that apart from implementation of second phase of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), China has agreed to train three hundred thousand Pakistanis in Information Technology that would surely help the sector grow and increase IT exports. The Prime Minister has vowed to take on terrorists, robbers, electricity pilferers, profiteers, tax evaders and corrupt officials and genuine practical measures in this regard can promote cherished objectives of good governance.
