The Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC) is not new to Pakistan; nor are some of the names appointed to the latest 18-member EAC, of which 11 members are from the private sector (12 if one also counts Abdul Razaq Dawood in his capacity as Advisor to Commerce). The key question therefore is that what have previous EACs achieved, and how this time may be any different?
The unfortunate bit is that there is no methodologically robust study of what the previous EACs did or did not achieve. Prima facie they achieved little, if any, given the long-standing sticky nature and pervasiveness of Pakistan’s economic problems from taxation, to trade, energy and doing business.
But is it the fault of the advisers’ (the EAC), or the fault of the advisee (successive political leaderships). It is difficult to put a finger on it given the absence of research on the subject and given the governments’ reported failure to give importance to the EAC’s advice.
Plus, consider the fact that the EAC isn’t really accountable, as civil servants may be or any institution such as PIDE, which is supposed to function as a think tank for the Planning Commission. Volunteers have much less to lose than civil servants or full-time employees of an institution. Most EAC members have a day time job they are doing alright; to what end can they be really effective in giving voluntary advice when they have got their hands full elsewhere.
The main thing different this time so far is that this time a lot of people have ‘hopes for change’; PTI’s biggest currency. Therefore, the EAC ought to take a few steps to increase the chances of being effective, albeit understandably the EAC cannot be effective if the cabinet doesn’t take the right decisions.
As a first step the EAC ought to have few full-time paid members supported by a dedicated research team. Second, the EAC should have a website where their research and draft strategic advice is made public for wider stakeholder discussion. Third, the minutes of the EAC meeting together with detailed comments of each member should also be made public via its website. This would help stakeholders better assess the quality of advice of EAC members, observe the voices of dissent within the EAC, and compare the EAC’s advice with actual decision of the government.
Among other first tasks of the EAC, it is the need to assess its own composition and how it should evolve over time. In comparison to the previous EACs, the list of private sector members of the current EAC is less diverse. It comprises mostly of economists, where the absence of a fiscal expert appears strange. Unlike the previous EACs, the current EAC doesn’t have industrialists or businessmen, nor does it have many bankers, legal and social sector experts. Granted that one cannot have representation from all disciplines in any council, but Finance Minister Asad Umar would know well that the economy is too important to be left to economists alone.
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