‘And this too shall pass’

Majyd Aziz

A king once asked all the wise men in his kingdom to travel all around the world and discover the eternal truth. Years later, they returned and told him that they have found the answer. It was, ‘and this too shall pass’. Today, the leaders and office bearers of various Chambers and Associations are routinely asked at various forums to offer their opinions and views on the economic situation in Pakistan. More often than not, the representatives of trade and industry would highlight the difficulties in doing business and would drone on with a litany of complaints and how these roadblocks were making life miserable for trade and industry. However, ironically, the nabobs of Karachi Stock Exchange would continue to maintain their position that everything is hunky-dory and foreign investors are stepping on one another’s toes to invest in the self-claimed ‘Best Performing Stock Exchange in the World”. There is a dichotomy here somewhere. Is everything super duper on the economic front? Are industry and trade representatives the perennial cry-babies trying to shift the onus onto Islamabad’s officialdom or political disposition? There has to be some veracity in both the situations because just raving and ranting about dire economic issues will not bring sanity in the business environment.

There is a sense of frustration within trade and industry that pragmatic and courageous policies are announced and applauded but generally it seems that policymakers themselves lose interest and rarely conduct a deep and focused review of the implementation of these policies. They tend to move on to other subjects with the result that most of the doable objectives are scattered on the sidewalk because the planner and the implementer are either not on the same page or, unfortunately, one or both the concerned officials have been transferred to some other office and the newcomers are rarely keen to own the policies. Ergo, it’s back to square one.

There aren’t any bombshells or hare-brained policies either proposed by trade and industry or even by the army of consultants, mostly foreign, who descend on Islamabad with tried, hackneyed or even radical game plans. Notwithstanding all the expert advice, theoretical from consultants and practical from businessmen, the issues and problems continue to remain the same. Or, as the French say it, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. 

So what are the issues that continue to be the main thrust of all government-private sector heartburning? Invariably, the enumeration begins with the chronic shortages of electricity, gas and water. SITE Karachi industrialists will also highlight the deterioration of the roads in SITE. Load shedding and power outages are so frequent that, as the joke goes, Pakistanis are ready both for Heaven or even Hell. The approval of CNG stations to provide affordable fuel for vehicles may have had its initial benefits but when greed and discretionary powers become the approving methods, then the proliferation becomes disastrous. So has been the case with CNG stations. Public vehicle transporters and even private car owners rushed to get their vehicles converted. Like the Ponzi Scheme, this too gave a short term relief while the loot was going on unabated, and today, there are long lines outside CNG filling stations on the days when gas is available. People have accepted this hardship too. Water has always been a big bucks item for the tanker mafia in urban areas while it has become a bone of parochial contention among provinces on the national front.

While infrastructure shortages and losses are discussed, debated and even cursed, the representatives of trade and industry get bogged down every post-Budget time trying to understand what exactly the Finance Minister had in mind while announcing the amendments, changes, and additions in the tax regime. What is so comical about the whole opera is that tax consultants, chartered accountants, and businessmen seldom seem to understand what FBR has proposed. To most of the businessmen, all this is gobbledygook, and so the harried business representatives band together and make the usual trips to Islamabad to try to understand what on God’s green earth, FBR officials really want to do. 

The so-called Global War on Terror, with all its ramifications, with all its devastation, and with all its costs has been a nightmarish event in the nation’s history. This war has put Pakistan in a precarious position and the ensuing result has been the regrettable branding of the Citadel of Islam as ‘epicenter of terrorism’ by forces and people hostile to the very concept of Pakistan.  The law and order situation was allowed to deteriorate by politicians, law enforcers, and those in command of the security and safety of citizens. No one was willing to keep the bull out of the china shop. Citizens are still left to the mercy of extortionists, kidnappers, gangsters, suicide-bombers, and petty goons lurking in every nook and corner. It seems that those who could control the situation were themselves involved in playing a macabre game and that the impact of this game was shredding the moral fiber of this country.

There is massive unemployment with even talented people not getting quality employment opportunities, there is bad governance with government unable to maintain, provide and sustain the social infrastructure, politics has not come out of the juvenile stage, smuggling, under-invoicing and mis-declaration are hot money-making ventures and are blatantly carried on with neither fear nor apprehension, land is encroached through the strength and influence of political parties and government officials, there are guns and ammunition everywhere, there is no fiscal stability, and people with money are buying bullet-proof vehicles, hiring more and more uniformed guards, and daily transferring $250 million out of this country to safer havens.

More ominously, all of the above are direct result of the corruption syndrome. Today, corruption is the norm not the exception. Citizens know that and they have resigned to the fact that the piper has to be paid and thus the piper gets his pound of flesh.  190 million denizens of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan have also discovered the eternal truth: ‘And this too shall pass’