Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Pakistan Businesses Forum (PBF) on Sunday said wide-ranging structural and institutional reforms are needed for the country in the prevailing circumstances.
Reforms are needed in tax administration, the wider civil service, management of state-owned enterprises, the energy sector, regulatory agencies, the central bank as well as the regulation of the corporate sector, among other areas, it added.
President PBF, Sahibzada Mian Usman Zulfiqar while talking to business community, said even there is no political will to reform the police. The latest Police Reforms Committee report prepared in January 2019 is gathering dust. Police in Pakistan must be depoliticized through democratic institutional oversight.
The role of police as service provider and an institution that protects citizens must be consciously pursued to change the present militarization of internal security.
He said Pakistan’s low economic growth since 1990 is more to do with lack of institutional reforms rather than external factors. “The rot had set in somewhere before 1990, which resulted in low economic growth later.”
Mian Usman Zulfiqar said that Pakistan’s economy faced too many challenges in the first four decades, including wars of 1965 and 1971, but it managed to grow over 6% on an average – higher than China and India.
Despite being involved in conflicts and losing East Pakistan in 1971, the country grew much faster than many leading countries. “For decades, Pakistan’s economic growth was among the top 10 countries in the world and leading economic managers from around the world came to see our economic model,” he added.
President PBF said Pakistan can still become governable and grow like India and China, but for that the country needs to implement institutional reforms to break from its past of over 25 years.
“I am not impressed with the current growth. I want to see Pakistan growing at least 7-8% for a sustained period to meet the challenges,” he stressed.
Mian Usman Zulfiqar said that no economic system is flawless; there is mis-governance in every system in the world, “We just have to evaluate the results that we get out of any system.”
