This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed ‘Raising a smart public sector’ carried by the newspaper on Wednesday. The writer, M. Ziauddin, has offered a highly informed perspective on the need for a smart public sector in the country. According to him, for example, “It is time, therefore, for Pakistan as well to give up its faith in the Washington consensus which was sold to poor countries on the promise that the trickle-down theory embedded within the workings of the consensus would help fuel growth in these countries and as a consequence the have-nots in these countries would automatically be lifted out of their poverty trap. It was an invalid theory.”

It is, however, important to note that in 1978 when China decided to launch economic reforms under Deng Xiaoping, almost one hundred percent of employees were employed in pubic sector. Things have changed on a massive scale in China since then. Public sector is nowhere near what it was prior to the launch of economic reforms. In case of Pakistan, however, there exists no political will to transform the existing public sector into a smart public sector.

SALEEM BOKHARI (ISLAMABAD)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021