Documentation reform

Mario Cuomo, the famed New York governor of the 1980s, once said: you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose; the element of difference between the two being he details. Sadly, when it comes to present day Pakistani politicians, the prose is often ill-written, lacks coherence of thought and fails to elaborate on necessary details.
Until July 27, the restructuring of public sector entities were in a limbo, despite many year-ago promises, and so were the tax reforms. The countrys independent governing institutions, the Competition Commission of Pakistan, the Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan, and the State Bank of Pakistan, were also virtually headless - running under acting heads.
Then came the monsoons and left the government stranded in the rains as torrential rains and floods ravaged farmlands across Pakistan.
First, the mismanagement of flood waters itself, then the mismanagement of relief efforts which is seen creating rifts amongst the provinces and then the release of potty numbers relating to the quantum of loss from the floods ($43 billion, phew; wonder whats cooking at government offices).
And now, in the aftermath of the flood, the absence of adequate governance has given ample room to profiteers to create additional food shortage and send prices to the sky.
It wouldn be too far off to say that of the many vices unveiled by floods, a serious lack of documentation of the economy is perhaps one of the key central issues.
Be it the decision to divert flood waters and evacuate the masses accordingly, the need to provide aid and relief goods to the flood-affected people, or to provide targeted subsidies elsewhere in the country, improve tax revenues, or the need to devise ways to ease inter-provincial disparity, data and documentation is central. It is even central to the affairs of the central bank.
"Data availability is likely to be a key restraint for the SBP when it sits down to announce the
Monetary Policy at end-Sep 2010. The effect of the floods is still being gauged, and it would be difficult to pinpoint exact numbers in terms of losses, and therefore, future impact on prices of commodities," Khalid Iqbal Siddiqui, Director Research of Invest & Finance Securities Ltd cautioned on Monday.
The recent earthquake in New Zealand is perfectly timed for the Pakistani officials to judge where they lack. This is not to compare the extent of the two catastrophes, but imagine an earthquake of such magnitude in a Pakistani urban centre - only in dreams can Pakistani authorities complete the loss assessment in 48 hours. The officials in New Zealand did it mainly because their economy is well-documented.
History shows that documentation played an instrumental role in effective administration by many civilizations new and old. And so, of the long list of reforms that present day Pakistan needs to undergo, one reform central to most of them should be the documentation reform.