Governance and security are the core concerns for the country's current predicaments: Principal Economist, SPDC

Mohammad Saber is Lead Economist at the Social Policy Development Centre. Besides undertaken comprehensive and ground breaking research in economic and social issues in the country, he has advised the Government of Sindh on the 7th NFC Award. He is also a regular contributor for BR Research publications and shall feature in the upcoming Fiscal Review 2012.
BR Research: Brief us about the work done by the Social Policy Development Centre, the vision behind its creation and what it has accomplished thus far. Mohammad Sabir: The Centre was established in 1995. The first goal for the Social Policy Development Centre was the formulation of an empirical model of the entire economy of the country, comprised of more than 300 equations and identities. With Dr Hafeez Pasha as the Managing Director, we were able to come up with quantifiable measures for many economic and social variables. At that time, former Prime Minister Moin Qureshi served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors, while former Finance Minister, Sartaj Aziz served in the capacity of Vice-Chairman.
Initial funding for the establishment and functioning of SPDC was provided by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). I joined SPDC in 1995, when the Centre was being expanded to include five separate units including public finance, poverty and governance.
After Dr Pasha went to work for the United Nations, Dr Kaiser Bengali took charge as the Managing Director, who was in turn replaced by Dr Shawal Ahmad. Finally Dr Khalida Ghaus is the current MD. Over this time, we have worked hard and expanded into research focusing on gender related issues, international trade, fiscal initiatives and other areas. Our sources of funding have also changed since the early days as now we are being funded by the International Development Research Centre. Then our Gender Research Programme is being financed by the Norwegian Embassy.
At present we are working on different projects on the overall economy, gender issues and environmental issues. Among our key outputs is an annual review entitled, Social Development in Pakistan, along with periodic research reports on specific areas of focus.
One prominent project that we are currently engaged concerns implications of the recent floods on the population of Thatta and its adjoining areas. The study covers the impact on economic activities, gender implications and developmental impacts. In addition to the data provided by the Federal Bureau of Statistics, we are conducting primary surveys of 500 households.
It is worth mentioning here that unlike the usual approach of citing responses from one representative, usually male, from each household we have gathered separate responses from males and females from each household. As a result, we have been able to uncover some novel findings, especially with regards to the differential impact based on gender.
BRR: Please share some of the key findings regarding the impact of environmental changes and natural calamities.
MS: This is an emerging focus for the SPDC because the propensity of flooding and of droughts is relatively higher in Pakistan. The rate at which deforestation has occurred in Pakistan is also alarmingly high, yet, unfortunately, very little attention has been paid to this depletion so far.
Then consider that Pakistan has been declared a water scarce country. In recent days there have been some shocking news reports such as one mentioning that Navy vessels have distributed clean water in Gwadar due to its non-availability locally. So, if the water shortage is not addressed proactively, it may become a bone of contention just like natural gas already has become. Livelihoods of those in the agriculture sector, fish farming and cattle herding are also being affected quite adversely. So SPDC, being a social sector organisation is increasingly focusing on these areas including providing practical alternatives for greener budgets at the federal and provincial levels.
Among mentionable findings from some earlier research conducted by the Centre we have established that the current water distribution system is heavily skewed in favour of the rich. As an example, consider that those residing in houses with sanctioned water connections on average consumer much more water than other living in shanty towns where entire neighbourhoods share communal water supplies. Poorer segments also lose on precious time that could be used for gainful employment if they did not have to queue up for water.
Even though the electricity distribution systems also deserve attention, at least in their case the tariff structure is progressive. Unfortunately in the case of water, the pricing is entirely unpractical and non-efficient because of which the importance of conserving this scarce and precious resource is lost on the majority of the people.
BRR: Besides extensive research with SPDC, you have also advised Sindh Government on the 7th NFC Award, what insights can you derive from that experience?
MS: We all tried quite hard to ensure that each of the provinces received a better and reasonable share of resource without stifling the Federal Government. Our expectation was that the inflow of resources in the provinces will boost development expenditure. Unfortunately, I have personally tried to compute the budget deficit a number of times and failed to reach the officially stated tally. When the Award was formulated, the underlying assumption carried was that the provinces would report budgetary surpluses but the opposite occurred.
In an article, "Federal Budget FY12: Unpleasant Arithmetic" which I wrote for the Fiscal Review 2011, I pointed this out last year, and the collective performance of the Federal and Provincial Governments over the past year has reaffirmed this strategy.
Further note, in Sindh tax authorities contend that the lofty revenue collection targets for the outgoing fiscal year have been achieved. With this kind of performance, it is hard to fathom a budget deficit of Rs 30 billion in the province.
Consider the potential for producing electricity in Pakistan. The province of Sindh appears poised to become the powerhouse of Pakistan. From untapped minefields to proven gas reserves, hundreds of miles for wind power; and so on Sindh should be leading the country out of the current energy crisis. The presence of a port also points to lucrative prospects for mushrooming exports. But as is obvious, that is not happening. In my mind, there are only two underlying causes: governance and security.