Shaukat Aziz’s Figure Fudging
By Dr. Hassan Isfahani • Apr 11th, 2008 • Category: Misc, Worth A Second Look • 8 CommentsThroughout his tenure, the former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, more commonly known as Shortcut Aziz didn’t tire of telling us as how well the economy was performing, and how the national exchequer was brimming with cash and the foreign reserves were all time high and all the economic indicators were showing nothing but positive signs of gigantic improvements.
Whenever his celebrated attention was diverted towards the utter misery of nation plunging in sheer poverty and huge rigmarole of price hike and dilapidated standard of life, his answer would be that very soon the economy would ooze out “trickle down effect”, and one precursor of that effect was that everyone had mobile phones and roads were jammed with the cars.
Though it’s another story that nobody has enough money to load their balance and they consider it suffice to just give “miss bell”, and now banks have started taking their vehicles back because of non payment of lease installments.
Now Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has told us the real picture of Shortcut Aziz’s criminal fudging. He said, “the largest portion of the budget overrun was because of the Rs138 billion subsidy on petroleum products and Rs70 billion on account of non-payment to Wapda, adding that no budgetary provisions had been made in that regard. An additional expenditure of Rs45 billion was incurred on importing wheat and there was no budgetary provision for that either.”
Now the new government has to take harsh decisions, but they must understand that they must not put much of the pressure on the already dying people.
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Isn’t this the trend of all governments that are elected? To blame the previous ones? We all know some ‘harsh decision’ need to be made, not because the poor are buying more mobile phones, but the rich are not investing enough back into the economy.
People not having enough to load balance is a poor inference from a phenomenon of a society as miserly as ours. But trust me, if this ‘receiver is charged nothing’ tariffing is started in any other country, this would happen there too.
Plus, people not having enough to pay back for the cars is another evil we face everyday. Promising something we can’t actually give back. The banks have all the right to take the cars back, and I sure most of the time is just all out negligence on the borrower’s part.
I am just amazed how some people just gobble up whatever corrupt, incompetent politicians spew.
Not a century has passed since these same people left the country crippled thanks to their lavish lifestyles, poor management and defiled schemes like Karz utaro mulk savaro for which there is neither a head nor tail of accountability.
Let us not be hasty in passing judgement. This is our national character. Every other guy puts the blame on the previous…. only time will tell how well the new govenment PLAYS with the FIGURES ….
Mr Shortcut Aziz gave the nation his economic gifts.After looting Millions he is outside country living a happy life.Must be brought back & tariled.
Phil
normally its a trend in almost every country espacially developing countries, but if you only read articles on TPS during the his era, we and many writers in news papers were writting against his policies. So the truth is so.
You your information, last temporary government has also showed serious reservations on figures given by Shoukat Aziz Government about economy. So it was obvious that new government will ope the hidden truth of our economy. The economy in Shoukat Aziz time was basically “Heating Up Economy”. If you knows about economic then you will know about it. This strategy basically damaged poor people life and buying power. So there is no real growth in economy. Why results seems good then? Reason is, Government always talked about Nominal GDP growth instead of Real GDP growth on media. otherwise things were not as good as they claimed. Although Foreign borrowings were less in last Govt but they fulfilled that requirement from Internal bank’s borrowings. In one way or an other, borrowings in last government remained at same level where Political Government left. Shoukat Aziz was basically expert in manipulating figures and I’m dead sure, he did same with President to influence him about economy growth. Now things are in front of every body. Its not so easy to get rid of borrowings by any government, if some one claims then its just political slogan. not reality.
Today News: Defence Ministry Accounts— Rs 26 Billion irregularities detected. Who is responsible? Lawyers and Aitizaz Ahsan? PMLN and PPP? Judiciary and Civilians? Is this not big issue? I think its not big then manhandling issue…if I see from eyes of Pro Musharraf and Pro Military people.
Yes yes it will not effect common man or poor man… if there will be no independent judiciary. Because so called present judiciary is unable to take solid action against it. Who will recover and will punish them. Do you expect it from present judiciary?
So sad , you guys can not come out of your biased thinking.
Wiki says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Pakistan
Pakistan was a very poor and predominantly agricultural country when it gained independence in 1947. Pakistan’s average economic growth rate since independence has been higher than the average growth rate of the world economy during the period. Average annual real GDP growth rates were 6.8% in the 1960s, 4.8% in the 1970s, and 6.5% in the 1980s. Average annual growth fell to 4.6% in the 1990s with significantly lower growth in the second half of that decade.
The economy grew at 5.1 per cent in 2003, 6.4 per cent in 2004 and 7.0 per cent in 2005.
From modest beginnings, Pakistani economy has moved successfully to a low-inflation high-growth trajectory since 2000. The central bank has controlled inflation at around 3% per annum in recent years - a record since 1980.
All those people who crticize Shaukat Aziz know as much about Economics as they know about rocket science. Truth of the matter, as recognized by internation INDEPENDENT bodies, is that Shaukat Aziz did miracles for Pakistan’s economy.
Someone said about GDP growth being shown in nominal, that is not true because the Fiscal Policy Statement and other official docs as well as external reports do show Real GDP growth which are just as good as the nominal GDP.
He was awarded as ‘Finance Minister of the Year’ by Euromoney and Banker’s Magazine by the experts in this field — not the brain-washed pseudo-economists.