President Musharraf, while inaugurating a CNG pilot project in Jhelum district the other day, revealed that the government is working on a comprehensive plan to pass on the benefits of the booming economy to the masses.
As spelt out by him, the plan aims at achieving poverty alleviation through creating new jobs and controlling inflation. The government is simultaneously working on another package to provide gas, electricity and clean drinking water to the people in all parts of the country.
"Unlike the hollow promises the politicians made in the past, I assure you to deliver on my words," he told the cheering crowd, adding that the government now has enough resources to spend on people's welfare.
This is indeed a happy news, which those in the low and middle-income groups would applaud. It also demonstrates the President's continued commitment to the seven-point agenda of good governance, which he had announced after taking over as the country's chief executive way back in 1999.
While inaugurating the CNG pilot project, he held the "soaring" international oil prices responsible for the runaway inflation in the country, the impact of which the government is trying to minimise by spending "billions of rupees," he told the audience. It cannot be denied that the government has indeed achieved a partial economic turnaround, due to a considerable extent to the post-9/11 aid inflows.
The rescheduling of loans by the Paris Club was another factor that helped us achieve a measure of economic stability. All this has put the economy on the path to recovery.
Despite the country having made macroeconomic gains, approximately 33 percent of Pakistanis continue to live in poverty in urban and rural areas. Secondly, the social sector spending on education and health, though marginally increased in 2002, continues to lag far behind the desired levels.
Experts believe that Pakistan's low spending on education and health is a leading contributor to the country's low human development status, ie 142nd on the Human Development Index.
UNESCO has recommended that the developing countries set aside a minimum of four percent of their GNP for education; but an SBP report says that the country is spending only 1.8 percent of its GNP on education. Incidentally, most low-income countries are spending three to four percent of the GDP on health. This is even lower in Pakistan.
Further, about 17 percent of the urban and 47% of rural population in Pakistan do not have access to clean drinking water, which contributes to 30 percent of hospital cases and 60 percent of the recorded infant deaths.
Economists maintain that raising non-development expenditure in less healthy economies invariably leads to increased poverty and unemployment, which in turn sharpens societal disparities. These also spawn internal disturbances and conflicts.
This is what has been happening in Pakistan. Economic growth, divorced from distributive justice, is a sure recipe for disaster. Unfortunately, the "trickle-down effect" on which the Pakistani ruling elite has been depending to improve the lot of the common man, has proved elusive, while rising inflation has driven him against the wall.
Now that the government has embarked on an ambitious programme of economic recovery, it must ensure that every Pakistani, regardless of their caste, creed or professional background, must get an equitable share in the economic boom - whenever it materialises.
Let the ruling elite practise the golden principle of distributive justice as an insurance against social unrest and repetition of the scenario that marked the end of the decades of sixties in our country.
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