PRIME Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar has approved the constitution of a cabinet committee for economic revival, giving it the mandate to suggest measures for long-term economic growth and offer stimulus packages to the private sector. Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar would head the 11-member special committee that has been mandated to ‘develop a plan for economic revival within two weeks’. The cabinet committee will examine the scope of stimulating private investment through streamlining and rationalizing an incentive framework.
In the backdrop of a fragile economy, the formation of the committee assumes relevance and one hopes it would come out with out-of-box solutions to address the current challenges that are pushing the country towards unchartered territory with the passage of every day. However, we may point out that we have had scores of such committees and commissions, some of which made very useful suggestions but they could not be implemented in letter and spirit mainly because of political expediency. In the absence of required cooperation from industrialists, traders, feudal and professionals, who earn hugely but are not willing to pay their due share to the national kitty, there is hardly any room for improvement as the policy of increasing tax collection by burdening the common man time and again, hiking prices of POL products in a wholesale manner and jacking up both electricity and gas tariffs without caring about financial health of the people has generated mass-scale frustration, threatening the very fabric of the already highly polarized society. The insensitivity being demonstrated by the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) towards the plight of the rupee, which has been left at the mercy of currency manipulators is yet another example of lack of urgency on the part of the planners and decision-makers to address the challenge as currency devaluation has become one of the major factors contributing towards record-breaking inflation. The worst aspect of the entire episode is that there has been no worthwhile increase in exports that is being cited as the major reason for currency devaluation. There seems to be a lack of clear direction and in the backdrop of chaotic conditions and uncertainty about the future, businesses are shifting to other countries and disillusioned youth are moving abroad. There is no room to continue to ask the layman for sacrifice and instead it is time for the elite and privileged classes to, at least, pay their due share of taxes if they cannot offer sacrifices for a country that gave them everything.
