No lessons learnt?

Prime Minister Imran Khan's launch of the Kamyab Jawan Programme (KJP) in Karachi, a title that presupposes success though one would hope that an independent evaluation/assessment of the programme be carried out in time to fine-tune and/or amend it to maximize its success, was reminiscent of the Prime Minister's Youth Programme launched during the tenure of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 2014. Unfortunately, however, the 2014 scheme was not a success because the loan application required collateral which the bulk of the applicants could not provide.

On 6 December 2019, Prime Minister Khan distributed cheques totaling 5 million rupees to KJP successful recipients in Islamabad with the Minister on Youth Affairs Usman Dar claiming at the time that 100 billion rupees had been earmarked under the programme, though he did not highlight the time-line during which the total amount would be disbursed. Two days earlier, December 4, 2019, Usman Dar while addressing 27 young politicians affiliated with 10 different political parties undergoing Young Politicians Fellowships Programme at Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat) stated that a record one million applications were received within 15 days of the launch of the first phase of the KJP. The lesson learnt from Nawaz Sharif's Youth Programme, notably that applications are not indicative of the success of the programme has not been forgotten or so one would hope.

The Prime Minister's policy statement on 'Ehsaas' programme launched on 27 March 2019 uploaded on the internet under subheading Jobs and Livelihoods envisages "deployment of a certain percentage of loans under the Prime Minister's Youth programme to support Solutions Innovation Challenges and Prize Funding Policy." It is unclear whether the Kamyab Youth Programme comes under the Ehsaas programme which is headed by Dr Sania Nishtar or components of the programme are being parceled out to other ministries headed by other ministers that may generate some tension especially as such have already surfaced. An example is Dr Nishtar's opposition to extending cash grants to beneficiaries under Benazir Income Support Programme (or the Kifalat Ehsaas programme as it is referred to now) through vouchers for use in the Utility Stores Corporation (USC) suggested by the Commerce and Industry Ministries headed by Razzak Dawood with the objective of providing financial support to the USC rather than through the banking network.

The Prime Minister also took advantage of the occasion and reiterated his mantra 'do not worry that things are difficult today' and pledged an improvement once his government has successfully dealt with myriad issues left by previous administrations. While there is no doubt that the Khan administration inherited a historically high level of current account deficit (close to almost 19 billion dollars) requiring harsh measures however Imran Khan has ignored to-date some policies of his economic team leaders that are simply untenable for the hapless public to withstand for more than a year at best and which require urgent tweaking.

These include a tax revenue target of an additional 700 billion rupees in the current year, at a time when growth is projected at less than 2.4 percent and another 900 billion rupees for next year that would further stifle economic activity raising unemployment. A prohibitively high discount rate is further stifling economic activity while raising utility charges (as pledged to the IMF which indicates the cost of incompetence and poor governance continues to be passed onto consumers to meet the IMF stipulated objective of full cost recovery) while keeping the rupee undervalued which is raising the cost of transport in the country thereby contributing to food inflation and eroding the value of each rupee earned. Monetary and fiscal policies' contribution to inflation has disturbingly consistently been ignored by the Prime Minister.

There is a need for the Prime Minister to take cognizance of the impact of the policies under implementation and assess/evaluate how to mitigate the impact on the poor and vulnerable. The 190 billion rupees budgeted allocation to his signature Ehsaas programme is insufficient to meet the needs of the poor and vulnerable his administration inherited due to more than doubling of the rate of inflation, leave alone the requirements of the growing number of jobless.