Structural flaws, poor governance affecting growth sustainability, conference told

The speakers at a conference Thursday said structural problems and poor governance systems in South Asia are the major roadblocks, hampering sustainable growth and development in the region, further increasing poverty level. This was gist of the concluding session of 14th Sustainable Development Conference (SDC), which ended here stressing the need for promoting inter and intra-regional debates on controversial issues to give better livelihood to people of the region.
Shahid Kardar, former governor State Bank of Pakistan was of the view that structural flaws were affecting the sustainability and is a source of economic imbalance. Commenting on the structural issues, he said Pakistan has one of lowest tax collection rate while subsidies are high on more consumable items like fertiliser but on the other hand state owned enterprises like PIA and Pakistan Railways were going into loss and can not operate for a day without government's financial assistance.
He said it was difficult to manage these issues and the country was moving deeper into the quagmire of debt. If the provinces cannot tax the agriculture sector, he said, why the federal government is subsidising fertiliser as it is the job of provincial governments after devolution of agriculture sector in the face of 18th constitutional amendment.
The electricity consumers of Lahore are bound to pay the line loss incurred by Hesco but people of Sindh were not paying the bills, he said, adding that if losses are not averted, we can not think of sustainable power generation. To get out of financial quagmire, he said, Pakistan needed strong decisions to tax all those who are eligible and all the players including the government, private sector and civil society has to change their lifestyle for moving ahead and putting the country on the growth trajectory.
Dr Nadeem Ul Haque, deputy chairman Planning Commission, who was the guest speaker at the session on 'Re-defining Paradigms of Sustainable Development in South Asia' organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) maintained that collaboration among academicians and researchers is vital to determine the future course of action for any country.
He called for practical and creative research agenda to save the country and ensure its sustainable development. He regretted that consultants of donor agencies undertake all the socio-economic research projects. In the session on 'governance challenges' the speakers were of the view governance is a broader concept than the outdated idea of merely a 'government' and is achieved through fostering interaction among the three pillars of society ie state, civil society and private sector.
They said the role of civil society is to observe government actions and induce positive developmental actions, which is a very critical aspect for overall developmental process. In the session 'Regional co-operation for water governance, it was said that all South Asian countries should immediately sign the ESPOO convention. They said Siachen glaciers should immediately be declared as peace-park without any conditions or prerequisites and particularly without any ground demarcating on the ice.
Syed Imtiaz Gillani, VC UET, Peshawar concluded there is an instant need to execute the decisions of the International Court of Justice regarding implementation of trans-boundary impact assessment. He said there is an immediate need to rehabilitate degraded watershed in Kashmir for sustainable flow in the rivers so that paradigms of sustainable development in South Asia can be redefined. "Our future is dependent on this and India has to open Indian-held Kashmir for Pakistanis to strengthen the people-to-people contact", he added.