ISLAMABAD: While outlining the power sector as a major challenge for the government, Prime Minister Imran Khan said on Tuesday that now is the time to show performance as "there is no excuse for learning and inexperience".

Speaking at Performance Agreements of Ministries for the Year 2020-21 signing ceremony here on Tuesday, he said the government was not fully familiar with the state of affairs in different departments especially in the power sector as for one and a half years different figures kept coming from the power ministry.

The prime minister said that it took him three months to have appreciation things.

The prime minister said that improvement in governance would only be achieved when all the ministries would perform in agreement to deliver on government promises made to people.

He said that the step for signing of agreement of ministries is a good step and the government performance would have to improve.

The prime minister said that performance evaluation of every ministry would be done and after five years the people would decide about the performance of the government on its promises made to them.

The prime minister said that he would now outline the power sector, pension, subsidies, exports and inflation as biggest challenges for the government, and stated that power sector is a major challenge because of complication and different things that had to be rationalized and synchronized, if the people were to be provided cheap electricity.

He added that subsides are second biggest challenge as government provides Rs2,500 billion in subsides.

He said, of course, every country provides subsidies to protect the poor and for underdeveloped areas as well as for wealth creation by increasing exports but some subsidies were required to be made targeted.

The prime minister said that the third biggest challenge was of course exports because unless and until exports increased the country would not be able to come out of the vicious cycle as increase in economic growth would also increase the current account deficit following a rise in import.

As a result, the prime minister said, there is pressure on foreign exchange reserves that forces the country to go to the IMF for bailout package.

Pakistan has gone to the IMF as many as 20 times, the prime minister added.

The prime minister also described pension as another big challenge, and stated no planning was done in the past too and now the pension has become a liability for the government.

He also underlined the need to concentrate on the agriculture sector to increase productivity and for food security, and employment generation, and stated that in the agriculture Pakistan has great advantage under the CPEC as the country can benefit from Chinese technology.

The premier added that after two years, "I have come to the conclusion that there is a need to prioritize the things till the bureaucracy moves faster in grade, and a grade programme would be monitored online, and the ministries would be penalized, if there was any delay in their completion."

The prime minister said that we have to prioritize every sector that would bring dollars in the country as there is fear of imports would bring current with the pickup in the economy and activities in construction sector. We need to preempt pitfall.

The prime minister said there was also lack understanding with regards to power distribution between the federal and the provincial governments, after the 18th Constitutional amendment, and the federal government is blamed even for those things that are not in its control.

He said, for instance, Food Ministry is with the federal government but all the powers have gone to the provinces, and if one province does adopt a different policy and there is price differential between one province and others, there would be a distortion in the prices. He said that federal government had no control if one province does not bring wheat in the market.

He said that the subject of environment has also gone to the provinces, although it relates to the entire country.

The prime minister said that as his party after the election was going to form a coalition government that took it from July 25 to August to complete the number, and got little time for preparation.

"Now when I was watching the US president-elect Joe Biden who got two and a half months after election to take briefing from ministers and bureaucrats," he added.

The prime minister said that "we need to review the system that after formation of the team the incoming government should be given time and briefing with respect to state of various ministries and divisions as well as about macroeconomic indicators -fiscal and current account deficit and electricity and gas situation."

The prime minister said after coming to power it took him three months to understand the things as everything was different from what it appeared from outside. The new government should never have to assume power in this way, he said, and added that it must get full time to understand the state of various sectors. "We need to tweak the system where the government should be given briefing so that it should be familiar now about the problems in different sectors," he added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020