Undoubtedly, there is someone out there who is far worse than I, when it comes to catching up on reading all the piles of information that the internet coughs up every day.
More importantly, every Government publication by law should have the date it was issued, pasted on each and every page - especially when it comes to reports relating to growth and economy. To be honest this is not the first time one has searched for any kind of date on a Government publication.
With that preamble, when this morning someone forwarded "Pakistan 2025 One Nation-One Vision", on a WhatsApp group, the assumption that it was a recent publication did not, at least I would like to believe, tantamount to jumping to a conclusion. Given that I have a very short memory, and I am not different from the vast majority of my Pakistani brethren, the inability to recall that the Pakistan 2025 vision document was released by the previous Government sometimes at the end of 2014, was not something that will give me sleepless nights- hey who can remember all the shit- and was it not 2030?!
Anyway, on realizing it was a very old, and now irrelevant publication, the initial impulse was to go back to the group and trace out the perpetrator and make him confess the crime, and well try to figure out his intent in posting something as ancient as 2014. However I did not want the cat to die- and then it stuck me- political cynicism.
Unfortunately the joke is on us, all of us Pakistanis.
The title was the first after shock- we are anything but one nation and we definitely suffer from multiple vision syndrome-binocular diplopia. A national vision is meant to provide clarity to our shared vision of the future- admittedly, but sadly a bridge still too far and getting farther day by day.
The second shock- the State of Pakistan must have spent a lot of money on articulating this vision, which appeared to be an exercise in futility in entirety- can there ever be continuity or will our future always be subservient to the King!
Nonetheless, reading through the document- well mostly because I was curious about what was the vision back in 2014- there was a funny discovery - those who wrote the vision were either never serious about the document, or were pretty much sure that they would not have to defend the vision when it failed- and they knew it had to fail!
Why do I say that?
The economy is targeted to grow by over 8% between 2018-2025 with single digit inflation... GDP per capita increasing from $ 1,300 to $ 4,200... an increase in exports from current US$ 25 billion to US$ 150 billion by 2025.
This is wilder than the wildest- and the assumptions to get there included tax-to-GDP ratio of 16-18%, investment rate in the range of 22-25% financed through savings of 18-21% of GDP.
The authors with their seven pillars made up of 25 goals were perhaps preying on the credulity and inexperience of the gullible voters- but even than you cannot but help give full marks for imagination.
Other goals included increasing literacy rate to 90%- double the number of PhDs- increase proportion of population with access to improved sanitation to 90% - infant mortality rate to fall to 40 per 1000 births - champion in 2 sports with at least 25 medal in Asian games- and this one is a killer, political stability and controlling corruption were also goals!
Increasing water storage capacity to 90 days- not sure what it is today - and providing of clean drinking water for all Pakistanis were indeed noble goals.
But when we get to the economy and the private sector is when the Vision really lets loose- like 5 global brands!
If you read through the entire document, and I confess I sort of read a bit here and a bit there, you realize that perhaps it was never meant to be a vision- it was just selling a dream - a political slogan. Perhaps it deserved the criticism and cynicism that it was being subjected to today.
But who cares about that- the bigger concern is does this nation not deserve a vision?
Seriously without a vision, a strategy and a plan you can only float and wander here and there- and that is exactly what we seem to be doing for a very long time - not taking into account the current times fighting a pandemic.
I for one am very skeptical, and getting even more skeptical day by day, about the nation ever getting to the point of a shared vision. Our politicians apparently will never let that happen- and sitting in front of the idiot box right now watching breaking news, I am convinced I am right.
The irony is, that if ever there was a goal to aim for as a nation - perhaps one contender is Vision 2025- at the end of the day - perhaps not a bad vision.
(The writer is a chartered accountant based in Islamabad. Email: [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are personal. The views are not necessarily those of the newspaper)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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