Speaking at the launching ceremony of the Digital Pakistan Vision at the Prime Minister's Secretariat, Prime Minister Imran Khan stated that digitalization is critical for the benefit of the people as it would assist the government to bring a meaningful change in the life of the common man. This, he further contended, would reduce the paper in use by the federal government with an obvious positive impact on environment as well as provide opportunities to women to contribute to this sector and cash in on more jobs in the economy.
There is
no doubt that the use of paper, sourced to trees, has had severe environmental
implications and hence any attempt to reduce its use must be fully supported
even though Pakistan imports paper to meet the bulk of its needs, however, one
would hope that the government would ensure that there are no deliberate
glitches in the computer system due to the perceived benefits associated with
influential elements, given that the burning of paper records stored in
government buildings has been a common enough feature in this country. At the
same time, while new jobs may emerge as a consequence of the decision to have
e-government yet it is unclear how many of the paper pushers would be made
redundant and offered training to operate within the digital environment.
The Prime
Minister then went on to politics and justified the massive reshuffle in the
Punjab administration claiming that “we are getting familiar with the
governance issues and everyone will see a change for the better." The
Prime Minister, however, did not change any member of the Punjab cabinet
indicating that he was convinced that the problem lay entirely in bureaucracy.
Sceptics maintain that there have already been three to four changes in the top
bureaucracy of Punjab without any visible improvement in governance and derive
little comfort from the most recent change. Others argue that the Prime
Minister's narrative has not changed and while he insists that top Punjab
bureaucracy is to blame as it continues to be loyal to the Sharifs (in power in
the province for 10 consecutive years) yet at the same time, he maintains that
National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is at fault as the civil servants are not
taking any decisions or signing off on any directives by the executive to
forestall the possibility of being hounded by NAB. The fact, however, is that
both the political leadership and the bureaucracy are partners in governance
and to blame one while absolving the other is a policy that has so far been
responsible for the lack of improvement in governance in the province.
There is
no doubt that the current account deficit has declined, reserves have
incrementally increased and the rupee has appreciated by about 5 percent as
indicated on the SBP website. However, the prime minister would do well to
understand the potential risks the SBP policy to attract so-called ‘hot money'
through ‘carry trades' by fixed income investors (hedge funds) carries.
Firstly, these funds are not Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) but short-term
commercial borrowing at a high cost and Pakistan could burn its fingers like
many other countries if cost of borrowing for these highly leveraged funds
increases in the international market. It is important that we do not pile up
short-term debt and instead go for issuance of bonds in the international
market with a tenor of 5 years or more. The prime minister would be well advised
to direct his economic team leaders to readjust their policies; and perhaps as
economics is not his forte he may seek an alternate view of the state of the
economy from those he appointed as members of his Economic Advisory Council.
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