EDITORIAL: Surely, the government understands that the problem presented by oil smuggled from Iran into Balochistan cannot be turned off simply at the flick of a switch. It will immediately deprive a very large number of people across the province, including pretty well-educated ones, of their prime source of income. Soon enough it will also slow down the local economy which is in enough trouble as it is with more than half the population living below the poverty line and about 65 percent of it suffering from food insecurity. Putting further burden on the already fragile nature of people’s finances risks triggering widespread discontent, crime, even insurgency given how Indian agents are routinely rounded up trying to exploit the sense of deprivation over there.
But since the prime minister has given the crackdown against smuggling the green light, a parliamentary committee has very wisely called for a major part of savings from it, which are expected to be substantial, to be committed to public works programmes that create jobs. It turns out that as many as 2.2 million people across Balochistan are associated in one way or another with the business of oil smuggling due to very scarce job opportunities and the fact that people consider it just business, not smuggling, because it makes so much more sense to buy cheap oil from nearby than expensive oil from far away, especially if your means are rather limited. In fact, if it hadn’t been for very severe US sanctions on Iran, Pakistan would have been one of Tehran’s most natural oil markets.
The Pakistani government expects to plug a leak worth Rs200 billion a year with this ban. But that is just the black-and-white of it. Local sentiment is very much against it since people of Balochistan blame the provincial and central governments for their sorry state of affairs. If only they had been given their due attention and share over time the population of such a mineral and commodity rich province would not have been the most deprived and backward in the country and nobody would have needed to smuggle oil, or biscuits and other edibles for that matter, from Iran just to keep the lights switched on at home. That is why even the political parties there are reluctant to back the ban publically. They know that even if they score some political points with Islamabad for the time being, they will not have much to say when they go to the people for their votes soon enough; especially if, as expected, the ban leads to a sudden collapse of the local economy.
That is not to say that the government should just keep looking the other way and let the smuggling continue. Instead, this has become such a deep-seated problem that the government will have to do a lot of homework before it is ready to take this bull by the horns. And it’s not so much about what to do as how to do it that should take most of its attention. Everybody knows that the Baloch people feel left out and their sense of deprivation must not only be addressed but also seen to be addressed immediately. Therefore, there needs to be a comprehensive plan to absorb a couple of million people from Balochistan, a number of them quite young and educated, as they hit the job market with a lot of force very soon.
The Petroleum Division is confident that the strategy developed by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to identify and shut down illegal retail outlets will stop the flow of smuggled oil from Iran to Balochistan, other parts of Pakistan, and even through to Afghanistan. No doubt that would make the national purse look much better. But unless the exercise is accompanied with appropriate lubrication of the provincial economy it might not end up being much to write home about even if it is the necessary and right thing to do. That makes it about as double-edged a sword as policy-making can become. But such is the burden of command. You must not only do what is right, but also do it in the right manner. Anything less, especially in such cases, can lead to disenfranchisement and even loss of livelihoods as well as lives. And there are hardly any second chances. Hopefully, the government has thought this through to the end.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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