The sadists in economy

Budget making is not an yearly function as the budget proposals keep on rolling dependent as it is on the spending habits of the moghuls. That all political parties have this moghulian tendencies only goes to prove that we have changed the name but still perform as the kings did. Is there any intellect on the political parties. Intellect is an anathema if ever there was one. The budget exercise is again being questioned. Traders are in revolt. One of my batch mates was Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (then Central Board of Revenue). This was Nawaz's first term and he called the traders to pay taxes and support his government. He said that the Chairman is their brother. The traders countered by saying that money was their father and therefore they will listen to the father and not the brother. The government gives a subsidy where it wants to look after its friends and interests. It is impossible to have a view that is not parochial in nature. Interestingly enough PM Modi has called all the stakeholders to a meeting to solve the cane price issue between the mill owners and the farmers. Pakistan's issues are different and more critical. For instance, the over-invoicing of machinery that is the monopoly of the Sharifs. Heavy mechanical industry has been banned from making this machinery. To give an example a mistry in Sindh made sugar factory worth Rs 4 crores while the minister of industry of Sindh made it for 125 crores. Over-invoicing in the industrial sector is a major cheat process in this country. I had made a presentation on this to the National Accountability Bureau in which I had made out a comparative study of all the sweetener industry of the world. India's was the most interesting because they had brought in to play the income from the by-products. Incidentally now sugar is the 21st by-product in the products' line. First is wax, second is wood and then a series of health products. The extra investment was of 3 million dollars but that could have been recovered in less than one season. Such was the advantage. No one bought it.
But to come back to the current crisis the traders are up in arms and they have threatened a strike countrywide. The Finance Minister is not backing down because he needs the money for his PM's lavish spending. These lavish spending are on road and other infrastructural project(s). The metro bus is full of loopholes and my information is that the company that has performed this is a Pakistani company registered in Turkey. A meeting of minds is there. Presidential palace in Ankara will be a 1000-bedroom all marble building. The White House after all has 100 rooms. But Ankara shall be ten times more. While Rome burnt Nero was upto no good. While Pakistan has floods the moghuls take a holiday in Murree. An aerial view was made but what of the aerial view.
The criminalization of society is going on at a fast pace. The politicians want to make a fast buck. The reasons maybe many but one of them is related to the elections. The more the institutions that are created for cleansing the country of corruption the more the likely will be the increase in officials involved in corruption. The honesty or otherwise of the officials is not dependent on the institutional strength but on the ability to handle temptation. I have always maintained that the individual to be above board must not be a crank. Cranks are found in government everywhere. These days they are found in political circles as well.
Karachi is a good example and the laws of oppression are draconian laws. The root cause has not been addressed. The basti recently cleared in Islamabad had housed thousands of families. They had been there for thirty years. Possession is nine tenths of ownership and possession of thirty years gives them the right to live as owners of that land. Yes the slums removal could have been done without destroying the houses that were there. The next will be the National Agriculture Research Station and then it will be the Quaid-e-Azam University. By the way what is the reason for the improvement of the road structure to Rawat. What is the reason for the elimination of trees and the landscaped road that is called the Expressway. Have the politicians and specifically the PM developed some interests in that area? If the details of their actions in public sector to benefit their own private sector has to be determined then the ways to get to investigate the Chairmen of the P&D of the Punjab government.
What does that do to the investors? They have a different way to assess the risks and uncertainties of the economic situation. That is why there is no investment that is coming to Pakistan - foreign or local. There is no growth in the economic systems as such. All this leads to a dismal situation for the youths of this country. They have any way had it because the political system is geared to give jobs to its own loyalists. It has also permeated the Public Service Commission of this country.
If the bureaucracy is tuned to look over their shoulders the decision-making will be that much poorer. The management factors are so diverse that in the 1980s the industry was cribbing about the Deputy Commissioner of Sheikhupura. I was carrying out a survey of the employment situation in the area. To my utter surprise only nine jobs were created in the area over a five-year period. General Jillani was governor and I brought this to his attention. We had been having press conferences each year and speaking about our good economic working. The Governor was upset and so was my boss. But the truth has to be out if corrective measures have to be taken.
I have always maintained that mental corruption is much worse than material or monetary corruption. Mental corruption is a recurring phenomenon. There is much truth in the averments of Imran Khan. Though his reasons are different. How can you assess whether a public servant is a crank or otherwise? There are certain rules of determination. The judicial system has to be geared up so that unnecessary problems do not occur. Admiral Fasih Bukhari recruited five hundred investigators in NAB about three years ago. It was an astonishingly transparent recruitment. The problems that are going to emanate will be that these were raw hands and with no legal education. Despite my legal work (as SDM, As Civil Judge Murree as SDO Jhenidah and as Acting Sessions Judge RWP) I have recently invested in Law Books written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. I am in the process of learning. I would suggest that you consider the reading habits of the new recruits. I recently was presented by a book by Falli Nariman, a Parsi who had been the lawyer for India. The tensions were over the Dams being built by India. The hearing took half an hour and the matter was decided by their lordships at The Hague. Our team was a five-person team and they recruited a British lawyer and when he died suddenly they recruited another one at an exorbitant cost. We do not know how many billions went in to the costs. But we came back and announced that we had won the case. The fact was that Falli Nariman (whom I saw in the India awards for outstanding Indians at the Times award ceremony) gave me the impression of a well satisfied person who knew his graces and his strengths. I give this example to indicate what mental corruption can do. Had we built the Neelum Jhelum we would have had fifteen million cusecs of water from the river systems. As it stands now we are getting six million cusecs of water (roughly sixty percent). So we are on a recurring loss.
I can go on to give an account of what we are doing to ourselves. The second portion (next week) will determine the answers to some of our current ills. Certainly one is easy to understand and that is - lies never help in the short term either. Sadists and cranks do not rule. Truth rules O.K.