Elections & Economy
By Farid Masood • Feb 2nd, 2008 • Category: Pakistan Vote'08, Politics • 7 CommentsHolding elections for a poor (apparently rich) country like Pakistan is a big ask, in terms of administrative measure, economic burden, rising issues of political parties, international pressures and terrorism etc. Here the terrorism does not means in American terms, basically the dealing between politicians and the prospect killing of politicians.
State Bank of Pakistan has announced increase in discount rates by 1% in efforts to control inflation, which has been almost out of control for last five (05) years. As we know the government has borrowed (internationally) huge amount of money to hold elections. Certainly such borrowings will affect the performance of next elected government as no on will right-off the money borrowed. Thus increasing debt burden on the nation due to decisions of our leadership.
This increased discounting rate shall affect the Inter-bank rate (KIBOR) and the loans and other borrowings at the end consumer level shall also be affected. But it is not for sure that the rising inflation may be controlled. Inflation in Pakistan if compared with India is very much on a higher side showing wrong policies adapted for the economy for the last many years.
The upcoming government after elections will have a tremendous pressure which is being build up. Many issues of finance pressure like Increase in Petroleum prices has been held up for the shoulders of next government. If free and fair elections are conducted it is for sure that PML(Q) (ex-government) might not be able to form even the opposition properly. So to paralyze the unwanted setup financial wrong doings will be a lethal weapon and even the next government can be demolished after a year or two by putting an financial misdealing allegations. Then another elections and another borrowings.
On the other hand corruption in every government cannot be eradicated as an MNA putting 30~80 million rupees in fire will just earn only Rs 100,000 per month as salary? Certainly not, he or his son has to contest the next elections also.
Our (out of control) economy has earned us the foreign reserves of 15 billion dollar (as per the government’s claim these figures were never been witnessed in the past) were mostly due to re-scheduling of debt (by appointing Dr. Ishrat Hussain as Governer State Bank and selecting Mr Shaukat Aziz as PM) and the enormous selling of crops like wheat, mangoes, oranges etc. Just see the figures of foreign reserves of China, Japan, India we may learn how the economies are growing. Just in two days of post-Bainazir assassination violence added Rs 2~3 in exchange rate of declining dollar. People looted banks and set on fire, looted edible items stocks due to poor economic situation prevailing. If the situation do not improve the next big threat is looting of edible items in Pakistan than the suicide bombing.
Time to plan for the future with a strong will.
Trackback URL
|
|
|
Click For More Articles By Farid Masood
All posts by Farid Masood
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Tim Ramsey
Good article, and well supported by facts and figures. Nice Job Farid.
yes, we can plan to not to give votes to these thugs once again. so remain at home and enjoy.
An MNA earns in the excess of 250,000 Rs per month in official salary, they also get a federal lodge to live in in Islamabad as well as several perks.
Normally anyone standing from the party ticket is provided campaigning funds by the party. If not so then they have to foot the bill from their own pockets..trust me none of our so called MNAS need another election to make up 30 - 80 million, their are S.H.O’s in Karachi who earn more than a million a month on the side.
The increase in the US dollar to Rs rate was not because of the riots but by the enormous amount of demand for the USD as people from Pakistan scurried to send their savings and investments abroad by the means of hawala/money changers.
Inflation is the result of a healthy growth rate in GDP. Any country experiencing GDP growth meets the monster of inflation. The Indian economies inflation is not as rampant as ours because in India people do not hoard commodities and make hay while the sun shines.
We can blame the government for everything under the sun, but lets not forget that the business community is as much to blame as the government. For instance the wheat/ata crises. There were several traders which bribed government officials to extract huge tenders of wheat which they exported in the international market for USD 230/kg which was later imported back by the same people for USD 430/kg. Half of the tenders wheat never made it to exports btw, they lay in warehouses in karachi and were later sold at inflated rates via smuggling to Afghanistan.
I can go on and on, what we need to do as a people is realize the true facts and stop blaming our governments for everything that happens in our country, the people of this country are involved as well as the government in many of these disasters.
The government machinery may be corrupt but it is the people among us that bribe it into corruption for their own personal gains.
Nice article. problem is with Government, not with business men Because Its responsibility of Government to implement systems to control Illegal trade, crimes, inflation and related issues. Dont expect loyalty or fairness from investor. He always wants to earn maximum. But Government implements set procedures for controlling them and keeping eyes on them.
Our government has no long term policy. They do every thing on short term basis. you can lot of examples. We introduced CNG stations to decrese imports of petroleum, result is shortage of Natural Gas in whole country. We decresed interest rates for investments, result is traffic jam problems due to leased cars, loadshedding etc.
I.T systems/softwares should be installed and operate to control these pakistani people ( I’m not calling them Nation.) otherwise future is very dark.
thanks all commentors for your acceptace and appriciation, Faisal bhai i shall try to write on the Particiption of a citizan in government functions.
regards
Thank you for sharing with us, I believe this website truly stands out : D. I found this similiar one here