Dr. Sathananthan, a Visiting Research Scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru University School of International Studies, read the following paper for the Ph.D. degree at the University of Cambridge.

There is great euphoria among Pakistani liberals over the presumed ‘return to democracy’. They are yet to discover Late Neo-colonialism. The manoeuvres against Musharraf bear uncanny resemblances to organised ‘people’s power’ the CIA unleashed during ‘colour revolutions’ and upheavals against Hugo Chavez.

The widely expected victory for Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Asif Ali Zardari in the presidential election brought to a high point the tortuous process of regime change in Pakistan. Anyone who has followed the ‘colour revolutions’ that installed pro-American rulers in Georgia (Rose Revolution, 2003), Ukraine (Orange Revolution, 2004) and Kyrgyzstan (Tulip Revolution, 2005) could surely not have missed the tell tale signs.

The earliest foreboding surfaced in the backroom manoeuvres by United States (US) and British intelligence services to engineer panic about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. It was a repeat of the duplicitous hysteria they generated over non-existent weapons of mass destruction that Iraq allegedly possessed. A carefully worded article, co-authored by former State Department officials Richard L. Armitage and Kara L. Bue, signalled the shift in US policy.

After formally acknowledging then President Pervez Musharraf’s many achievements, the authors continued: ‘much remains to be accomplished, particularly in terms of democratization. Pakistan must…eliminate the home-grown jihadists…And…it must prove itself a reliable partner on technology transfer and nuclear non-proliferation.’ And the denouement: ‘We believe General Musharraf…deserves our attention and support, no matter how frustrated we become at the pace of political change and the failure to eliminate Taliban fighters on the Afghan border.’ Translation: Musharraf has to go.

Almost simultaneously a 2006 country survey in The Economist, titled ‘Too much for one man to do’, began on a jingoistic overkill: ‘Think about Pakistan, and you might get terrified. Few countries have so much
potential to cause trouble, regionally and worldwide’. The following year a Carnegie Endowment report faulted western governments that ‘contribute to regional instability by allowing Pakistan to trade democratisation for its cooperation on terrorism’.

Senior US State Department officials repeatedly accused Musharraf of ‘not doing enough’ to combat Islamists within Pakistan and prevent their infiltration across the Durand Line into southern
Afghanistan.

Sensing the way wind was blowing, then PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto redoubled efforts to convince Washington and London that, if she were to become Prime Minister, she would gladly do their bidding. She underscored her enthusiasm to serve and ensured her party was fully responsive to America’s Late Neo-colonialism. She summoned senior party members to Dubai on 9 June 2007 for a ‘briefing’ by a team from the US Democratic Party’s National Democratic Institute (NDI), ostensibly on the subject of elections in Pakistan. The ruling Republican Party’s International Republican Institute (IRI) had conducted the previous four ‘briefings’ in June and September 2006 and March and April 2007. Benazir leaned towards the Democratic Party in the last one no doubt as a hedge against the party’s possible victory at the forthcoming US Presidential Election.

Even a cursory knowledge of US Imperialism’s standard operating procedure is sufficient to surmise at least some among the IRI and NDI officers were covert intelligence operatives; and that their ‘briefings’ went beyond ‘tutelage of natives’. Rather they have been grooming the PPP as America’s satrap.

Benazir’s predilection to collaborate with the West has its roots in the Bhutto family’s micro political culture. Her grandfather, Shah Nawaz Bhuttowas a minor comprador official in the British colonial regime. The British rewarded his ‘loyal’ services with the title Khan Bahadur and later appointed him President of a District Board and still later elevated him to knighthood.

Her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s populist programmes did not dilute that legacy, which left a lasting impression on Benazir; she firmly believed the path to political power in Pakistan meanders through the Embassy of the United States, the current neo-colonialist.

She promised to offer the International Atomic Energy Agency access to Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan to ’satisfy the international community’, an euphemism for the major powers; and to allow the US-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan to operate inside north-western Pakistan. By the time Benazir visited the Senate in September 2007, she had convinced the Bush Administration of her unswerving loyalty; for ’she received a standing ovation from a select gathering of US lawmakers, diplomats, academics and media representatives. This contrasted sharply with her previous visits to the US capital when she received little attention.’

To deepen ‘Washington’s renewed interest in her, Benazir cautioned that supporting Musharraf was ‘a strategic miscalculation’ and pleaded ‘the US should support the forces of democracy’, which, of course, refers to her PPP.

So, President George W Bush enabled Benazir’s return from exile by arm-twisting Musharraf to promulgate the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). The NRO of 5 October granted amnesty to politicians active in Pakistan between 1988 and 1999 and effectively wiped the slate clean of corruption charges for Benazir and her husband Asif Zardari. Three weeks later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made it appear the Bush Administration wished to bring together ‘moderate’ forces, implying a scenario in which Musharraf and Benazir would join forces as President
and Prime Minister respectively; and Deputy Secretary of State John
Negroponte corroborated Rice: ‘Our message’, he intoned, ‘is that we want to work with the government and people of Pakistan’.

However, Musharraf saw through the US Administration’s transparent ploy to lull him into believing it would not remove him and install Benazir in his place. So, he swiftly invited Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), back from exile in Saudi Arabia to counter Benazir.
But he could not consolidate his position, especially because he mishandled the judiciary, and was compelled to resign on 18 August 2008.

In a nutshell, the reason for ‘Washington’s renewed interest’ in Benazir is Musharraf’s firm opposition to US Late Neo-colonialism, to its manoeuvres to occupy, pacify and ravage Pakistan. In the 19th century British colonialism waged the ‘war on piracy’ on the high seas ostensibly to bring ‘the light of Christian civilization’.

But the British were the most successful pirates,as Spanish and Portuguese historians would gladly confirm. The ‘war on piracy’ was the duplicitous justification trotted out to dominate
lucrative maritime trade routes that were in the hands of Chinese, Arab and Tamil maritime empires and to invade kingdoms and/or countries essential to control trade and plunder resources. During most of the 20th century heroic anti-colonial movements and anti-imperialist wars rolled back much of colonial rule, which in some instances however morphed into neo-colonialism.
Indonesia after Sukarno, Iran after Mosaddeq and Chile after Allende are well known examples.

The ‘war on terror’ and ‘promoting democracy’ are the 21st century equivalents of the 19th century British gobbledy gook. American Late Neo-colonialism purveys them as moral justification and uses as political cover for intervening and, where necessary, invading resource-rich and strategic countries to overthrow nationalist leaders, install puppet regimes and savage the countries’ wealth. And of course the US is by far the most powerful terrorist force.

It succeeded in Iraq (for now); but the CIA-organised regime change could not dislodge Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who rejected the neo-colonialist 1989 Washington Consensus and supported alternative nationalist economic models.

Politically challenged Pakistani liberals — a motley crowd that includes members of human rights and civil liberties organisations, journalists, analysts, lawyers and assorted professionals — are utterly incapable of comprehending the geo-strategic context in which Musharraf manoeuvred to
defend Pakistan’s interest. So they slandered him an ‘American puppet’, alleging he caved in to US pressure and withdrew support to the Afghan Taliban regime in the wake of 9/11 although in fact he removed one excuse for the Bush Administration to ‘bomb Pakistan into stone age’, as a
senior State Department official had threatened.

Nevertheless American discomfort with Musharraf’s government was palpable by late 2003, after he dodged committing Pakistani troops to prop up the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. When he offered to cooperate under the auspices of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), naïve
Pakistani media and analysts lunged for his jugular, condemning him once again for succumbing to US demands. But in fact he nimbly sidestepped American demands: he calculated that diverse ideological stances of the 57 Muslim member-counties would not allow the OIC to jointly initiate such controversial action and therefore Pakistan’s participation cannot arise, which proved correct.

Washington of course was not amused and the Bush Administration grew increasingly hostile to Musharraf’s determination to prioritise Pakistan’s interests when steering the ship of the state through the choppy waters of the unfolding New Great Game, in which the West — led by the US — is manoeuvring to contain growing Russian and Chinese influences in Central
and West Asia.

His foreign policy decisions over time convinced Washington that under his leadership, Pakistan would side with enemies of US and Britain in the New Great Game. First, he refused to isolate Iran; instead he vigorously pursued energy cooperation to build the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline in the face of stiff American opposition. Second, Washington was alarmed by Musharraf’s preference for deepening Pakistan-China bilateral relations and forging nuclear cooperation; and more so when he offered Beijing naval facilities at the Gwadar port on Balochistan’s Arabian Sea coast overlooking the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic chokepoint through which passes approximately 30 per cent of world’s energy supplies.

Perhaps the last straw was his success in gaining Observer Status for Pakistan in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). Russia and China are spearheading the SCO, which includes four other countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan; Iran and India are also Observers. The SCO is widely perceived as a rising eastern counterweight to western security and economic groupings and Islamabad drifting towards the SCO was simply unacceptable in Washington.

To rub salt into its wounds, Musharraf refused permission to interrogate Dr. AQ Khan and firmly rejected Washington’s demands that NATO troops be allowed into the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) to hunt down Osama bin Laden and his associates.

By early 2006 it was clear Washington was looking for nothing less than a pliable leader in Islamabad, a firm political foothold in Pakistan and a Pakistani foreign policy that complemented US strategic aims in Central Asia.

What perhaps angered Washington the most were actions Musharraf took to wind down the ‘war on terror’ within Pakistan.

Immediately after taking power, he outlawed three Islamic extremist groups and, after 9/11, intensified military operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) bordering Afghanistan.

Washington would have gone along with Musharraf had he focussed on military operations to curb Islamists. Military action alone cannot defeat guerrillas; but it can kill many of them and in turn induce new recruits well known points reiterated by William R Polk in Violent Politics (2007) so that the so-called ‘war on terror’ would not end any time soon. That could supplement US Administrations’ assiduous manufacture of the ‘Islamic threat’ through the 1990s to launch an endless ‘war on terror’ — the New Cold War — to rescue America’s permanent war economy. For after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US economy (and by extension west European economies) faced perhaps its biggest crisis: the ‘Communist threat’ ceased to be credible; it could not be exploited to terrify the American people into acquiescing to rising military expenditure that keeps wheels of the permanent war economy rolling and to expanding the repressive security apparatuses.

So the Bush Administration deftly replaced the ‘Communist threat’ with the ‘Islamic threat’, no doubt following Machiavelli’s famous advice in The Prince, that *a wise ruler invents enemies and then slays them in order to control his own subjects.* The apparently counterproductive bombings,
arrests, torture, kidnappings and disappearances (sanitised as Extraordinary Rendition) carried out by US forces while the CIA covertly funded, armed and supported Islamists are intended not to eliminate the ‘Islamic threat’ but to contain it within manageable limits and to spawn the next generation of ‘terrorists’.

Sometimes, plans go awry; ‘culling’ may not contain the resistance, as seen in Afghanistan from time to time. Nevertheless, the strategy is to ‘feed terrorism’ and simultaneously ‘cull terrorists’ so that the perpetual New Cold War oils America’s moribund permanent war economy.

Musharraf, however, did not play ball. He complemented military force to defeat Islamists with political initiatives.

He signed a peace treaty with tribal elders in North Waziristan (within FATA) to marginalise the Islamists. To combat the Islamists’ religious ideology, he promoted ‘enlightened moderation’, a veiled reference to secularism and tolerance. Musharraf’s vision of a secular Pakistan has its roots in exposure to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s legacy when he attended school in Ankara during his father’s diplomatic posting to Turkey.

In fact, after taking power in Pakistan he often held up Ataturk as his role model. He planned to ‘wean away’ the people from the ‘extremists’ through education is how he described his approach to this writer. Towards this end, he introduced educational reforms and re-wrote school history text books; enacted laws protecting women’s rights and diluted Islamic laws against women; and he liberalised the media. To deny Islamists their traditional rallying cry — Kashmir — he opened path breaking negotiations with India to remove that arrow from the Islamists’ quiver.

When Musharraf skilfully combined military operations against Islamists with a political front promoting secularism to ideologically disarm them, the US administration saw red. By secularising Pakistani society over time Musharraf would de-fang the ‘Islamic threat’ within Pakistan and extricate the country out of the contrived orbit of ‘war on terror’.

That would greatly diminish Washington’s leverage to intervene in the country to distance Islamabad from Beijing and exploit energy resources abundantly found in Balochistan and, in the long run, perhaps derail US administration’s well laid plans to bring Afghanistan to heel and to
dominate Central Asia and its oil-rich Caspian Sea basin.

But Musharraf was in no mood to back down. So the Bush Administration slipped regime change into gear. Taking advantage of his missteps, the anti-Musharraf media blitz, NGO and student mobilisations, lawyers agitations, protests by political parties and civil society organisations
seemingly coming from all directions in fact displayed a fantastic degree of organisation, coordination and financing clearly beyond the ken of the fratricidal activists and often ad hoc institutions and never witnessed before in the country. Very likely they will not be seen again either; indeed later the activists were singularly incapable of organising any significant agitation when three women were buried alive for defying their parents’ choice of husbands. The manoeuvres against Musharraf bear uncanny resemblances to organised ‘people’s power’ the CIA unleashed during ‘colour revolutions’ and upheavals against Hugo Chavez.

The Bush Administration began reaping the rewards of unseating Musharraf within 24 hours of his resignation. Chief of Army Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani travelled to Kabul to meet NATO and Afghan commanders on 19 August. About 10 days later Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen informed a Pentagon news conference on 28 August that Kayani and his lieutenants held a ’secret meeting’ with their US counterparts on a US aircraft carrier, reminiscent of American gun boat diplomacy in Latin America and unthinkable in Pakistan under Musharraf’s watch..

Mullen touchingly chronicled how he ‘learned to trust’ Kayani and bent over backwards to emphasise that Kayani is no American puppet, that Kayani’s ‘principles and goals are to do what’s best for Pakistan.’ But a few sections of the US media, weaned on decades of Pentagon-speak from the debacle in Vietnam to the illegal invasion of Iraq, saw through the verbal obfuscation. And when a reporter pointedly queried Mullen whether Kayani’s ‘goal for Pakistan also aligned a hundred per cent with the US goal’, the Admiral waffled: ‘[Kayani] knows his country a whole lot better than we do. And again, I just think that’s where he is, that’s where he’ll stay.’
Translation: US administration has got Kayani on tight leash.

And to maintain there is no substantial change from Musharraf’s policies, Kayani’s spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas and Mullen alleged the meetings had been arranged several weeks earlier, when Musharraf was President, to facetiously imply he had approved the contacts.

The import of ‘coordination’ between American, NATO, Afghan and Pakistan militaries will become clearer over the next weeks and months. For now the suspicion is unavoidable that the US Administration has at long last begun frog-marching Pakistan into the US-created Afghan quagmire to further destabilise the country and justify intervention.

Musharraf had resolutely opposed precisely this eventuality. He rejected US demands that the Pakistani army assist NATO forces in Afghanistan. He underlined the country will not repeat the catastrophic mistakes of the 1980s when it got embroiled in America’s war in Afghanistan against the then Soviet Union, for which the Pakistani people continues to pay a heavy price. Rather, he insisted his army will fight only Pakistan’s war within Pakistan’s borders.

The consequences of the PPP leadership following the US into the Afghan quagmire will soon be evident. Already, within 16 days of Musharraf’s resignation, US forces carried out the first ground assault in Angoor Adda area within Pakistan’s borders — which Musharraf had disallowed – with the connivance of the new leadership. Obviously there is more to come since the Bush Administration has eagerly caricatured the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as ‘The New Frontier’ in the New Cold War.

For the moment, there is great euphoria among Pakistani liberals over the presumed ‘return to democracy’. The comments by Ayesha Tanmy Haq are typical: ‘We have removed a dictator by the citizenry showing that real power lies with them.’ The hapless liberals have yet to discover Late
Neo-colonialism and its devious manoeuvres for regime change; they have in fact effectively legitimised them by opposing Musharraf. They are agonisingly unaware of the labyrinthine geo-politics and economic imperatives underlying the New Cold War. They are blissfully going along with the collaborationist leaders who are bartering away the country’s future for the proverbial pieces of silver.

Look at the following results from Election Commission and you will get the answer of your question. You can calculate how many seats won by Musharraf supporting parties. Furthermore, you will be astound to know that even the total no. of seats won by PMLQ allies little less than PPP but the total no. of vote cast to PMLQ (Musharraf party) were highest. If was not embraced SHAHADAT (untimely) there was no chance of PPP getting that many no. of seats.

The election result of Pro MuUsharraf parties is really A SHAME (YOUR FAVOURITR WORD)FOR MUSHARRAF BASHERS even with THE HOSTILE MEDIA, LAWYERS MOVEMENT, PRESENCE OF MIANS AND ZARDARI ETC ETC

I don’t in which world you guys are living and just ignoring UNIVERSAL TRUTHS, now you should accept that their people who loves MUsharraf but just waiting for an opportunity to come back in support of him but you just wait and see

Party NA PP PS PB PF
PPPP 87 78 65 7 17
PML(N) 66 101 0 0 5
PML(Q) 38 66 9 17 6
MQM 19 0 38 0 0
ANP 10 0 2 1 31
MMA 3 2 0 6 9
PML F 4 3 7 0 0
BNP(A) 1 0 0 5 0
PPP(S) 1 0 0 0 5
NPP 2 0 3 0 0
INDEPENDENT 27 35 1 10 18
TOTAL RESULTS 259 285 125 46 91
SEATS CONTESTED 268 293 130 51 96

Now look at the following facts and you will know why People like Musharraf and look at the last para why people don’t like politicians and SO CALLED DEMOCRACY

Written By: Afreen Baig

Foreign Reserves – a significant economic indicator and of vital importance to every expanding economy. Foreign Reserves is the first and basic economic indicator that transmits an air of confidence and trust, amongst the potential foreign & local investors and the nation. Foreign Reserves are held in abundance and accumulated - in order to sustain the confidence of a country’s capacity to carry out external trade confidently, to balance the momentum between demand & supply of foreign currencies, and also used as an intervention tool by the State Bank. Reserves also bail out the economy in times of financial crisis.

By October 2007, at the end of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s tenure, Pakistan raised back its Foreign Reserves to a handsome $16.4 billion. His exceptional policies kept our trade deficit controlled at $13 billion, exports boomed to $18 billion, revenue generation increased to become $13 billion and attracted foreign investment of $8.4 billion.

Pakistan recently has seen a drastic drop in its Reserves by 50% and its currency devalued by 40%, which has left ordinary people confused and the usual cynics have started heaping the blame onto the policies of Mr. Shaukat Aziz, without even knowing the basic macro-economic indicators nor understanding the relationship b/w Foreign reserves, Trade deficit and Currency devaluation.

The Trade deficit (Exports minus Imports) is always managed in ratio to Revenue generation, Capital inflows and Reserves. Almost all developing economies face the dread of trade deficit but their abundant foreign reserves gives them the fiscal space to overcome those grievances.
Illustrating in mathematics for ordinary readers, on October 2007, when PM Shaukat Aziz left us:
Exports - $18 billion

Imports - $30.53 billion

Trade deficit - $12.53 billion

Foreign Reserves - $16.4 billion

What is to be seen above is that, Pakistan’s Foreign Reserves $16.4 bn exceeded the trade deficit $12.53 bn by a comfortable $3.87 billion and with an additional foreign investment of $8.4 billion – Pakistan’s currency stayed stable at Rs.61 per dollar.

Currency starts to devalue ONLY when the Trade deficit surpasses the Foreign Reserves. This rare phenomenon occurred in PPP’s incompetent & dense minded government, which has led to devaluation of the currency by 40%. They failed to protect our Sovereignty - our Foreign Reserves!

In PPP’s inept government of eight months,

Trade deficit - $20.74 billion

Foreign reserves - $8 billion

Under PPP, the Reserves fell from $14 billion to $8 billion and the trade deficit increased from $12.53 billion to $20.74 billion.

The moment the foreign reserves ($8 bn) fell below the trade deficit ($20.74 bn), the currency starts to devalue. Under Mr. Shaukat Aziz, Rupee stayed stable till October 2007, because our Reserves $16.4 billion EXCEEDED our Trade deficit of $12.53 billion.

In 2007, when international oil prices reached an alarming level of $140 per barrel it hurt the Imports bill of many developing countries, by increasing the trade deficit. The experienced Mr. Shaukat Aziz gauged this situation and immediately started monitoring & controlling individual sectors that were importing. He allowed imports only in sectors that were export specific. His efforts resulted in decreasing our Import bill by 6.53% by September 2007 (one month before he left).

Rupee stayed stable throughout Mr. Musharraf’s supported governments. Trade deficit never exceeded the foreign reserves in the last eight years. The results were as follows – a stable rupee:

2001-02: Rs. 61
2002-03: Rs. 57.7
2003-04: Rs. 57.92
2004-05: Rs. 59.66
2005-06: Rs. 60.16
2006-07: Rs. 60.5
2007 (Dec): Rs. 61

What did the inefficient PPP do in these last eight months? They failed to monitor each sector of imports to control them individually. Pakistan’s economy started destabilizing because PPP could not guard our $14 billion reserves. Nor did they utilize any effort to increase the reserves from where Mr. Shaukat Aziz left it at $16.4 billion! The easier way out for them is to beg around the world barefaced or go back to IMF disgracefully.

What did the PPP further do? They increased the import bill by 55% in the months April to June 2008 and again increased it by 52.65% in the months July to September 2008 – though world oil prices fell from $140 per barrel to $70 per barrel.

Flight of capital takes place ONLY in economies where there is lack of trust and faith! Investors and endowing Public do not trust the government of PPP and are wary of PPP’s earlier corrupt reputation.

In the first four months of PPP, around $22 billion were withdrawn from the economy and KSE’s market capitalization fell by $29 billion. The State Bank was forced to place ban on transfer of dollar outside Pakistan.

Foreign reserves get hurt twice in this depletion process. First, when the investors and public pull back their money. Second, when macro-economic indicators witness imbalance and the government is forced to pay their external liabilities through these Reserves. This second stage occurs only when the government loses other means of regular income and is unable to control their imports.

Every country in the world is forced to make Imports. Imports help boost Exports. Even the world exporter China makes an import worth around $954 billion, to further promote their exports. But, Imports should be Export specific – scrutinized and restrained monthly – which was being done under the policies implemented by Mr. Shaukat Aziz.

Let’s analyze the steady India, as an example, with GDP growth of 9%.

Indian Imports - $188 billion (compared to Pakistan’s imports of $40 billion)

Indian Trade deficit - $63 billion (compared to Pakistan’s deficit of $20 billion)

The Indian currency is not devaluing because their Foreign Reserves $308 billion exceed their trade deficit of $63 billion.

Had Mr. Shaukat Aziz continued, the Trade deficit would have been kept controlled in accordance with Pakistan’s Revenue generation, Capital inflows and Foreign Reserves – which would have kept our rupee stable and economy booming at 7% GDP growth.

This latest IMF tranche of $7.6 billion, pre-arranged for a period of two years, will not help boost an economy whose foreign investment is declining, and where the trade deficit exceeds the total foreign reserves. This economic deception is yet another soothing drug given to us, by our unpopular democratic government of PPP.

If Pakistan wishes to remain free from influence of IMF, there is no better option than to assert our economic sovereignty and accumulate Foreign Reserves, from help of over-seas Pakistani. Regrettably, PPP lacks the credibility and the reliability to attract back that trust and confidence!

With thanks to Afreen Baig

Afreen Baig is an independent analyst majoring in International Relations and Economics. She can be reached at afreenbaig@gmail.com

Musharraf Era performance: Pakistan Flourishes

Mirza Rohail Baig

This is all the more amazing when one considers that just five years ago, Pakistan was on the verge of bankruptcy, with only a little more than $1 billion in foreign exchange reserves, its stock market teetering at 1,000 points (worth $5 billion only) and foreign debt servicing at 65% of GDP.

The forex reserves now stand at over $16.5 billion. The once ever-declining rupee has been stable at around 60-61 to a dollar since Musharraf took over. Of the 184 member countries of the IMF, Pakistan’s rate of economic growth (7%) has been one of the best in the world. Moreover, the Karachi stock market is now above 13,000 points and worth around $65 billion. On top of that, foreign debt servicing has now decreased to 28%.

1. The Pakistan economy is among the fastest growing economies in the world, having reached the size of $160 billion from a mere $70 billion in 1999. Furthermore, Pakistan attracted a record investment of $6 billion last year.

2. 2007: National revenues had swelled from Rs 308 billion during 1988-99 to around a trillion in 2007 and the FBR now estimates 2.8 million income tax payers.

3. Public sector development program (PSDP) has grown from Rs 80 billion in 1999 to Rs 520 billion in 2007.

4. FACT: The rate of growth in Pakistan’s Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) is at a 30-year high. Construction activity is at a 17-year high.

5. FACT: The Infrastructure Industries Index, which measures the performance of seven industries (i.e., Electricity generation, Natural gas, Crude oil, Petroleum products, Basic metal, Cement and coal) has recorded a 26.2 percent growth in the Industrial sector of Pakistan.

6. FACT: Jan 14: According to the National Education Census (NEC-2005), Pakistan now has a total of 245,682 Educational institutions in all categories, including 164,579 (i.e. 67%) in the public sector and 81,103 (i.e. 33%) in the private sector.

The census — jointly conducted by the Ministry of Education, the Academy of Educational Planning and Management (AEPAM) and the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) — reveals that the number of private-sector institutions has increased from 36,096 in 1999-2000 to 81,103 in 2005, i.e. by 100%. Educational Institutions have increased by 45,007 in the Musharraf Era.

7. FACT: According to an IMF report, Pakistan is 3rd in Banking profitability in the world. On the IMF chart, Pakistan’s banking profitability is on third position after Colombia and Venezuela. On the same IMF chart, India is on the 36th position and China is on the 40th position.

8. FACT: According to a report entitled, “Doing Business in 2006,” co-sponsored by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Pakistan globally ranks 10th among the countries most active in pursuing pro-business policies.

9. In 1999 what we earned as GDP: we used to give away 64.1% as foreign debt and liabilities. In 2006, what we earned as GDP: we gave ONLY 28.3% as foreign debt and liabilities. We are now SAVING 35% of our GDP for economic growth.

10. According to the Economic Survey 2005, poverty in Pakistan in 2001 was 34.46%. And now, after 7-8 years of Musharraf, poverty in 2005 was 23.9%. Thus, poverty DECREASED by 10.56%. Overall, 12 million people have been pushed out of Poverty in 2001 - 2005!

11. Literacy rate in Pakistan has increased from 45% (in 2002) to 53% (in 2005). Education now receives 4% of GDP and English has been introduced as a compulsory subject from grade 1.

12. 12-4-07: The IT industry, which was virtually non-existent seven years ago, has grown to be worth $2 billion of which $1 billion is export related. It registered a 50% growth. 55 foreign IT companies have already entered the market. Now the I.T. sector alone employs 90,000 professionals.

13. Nov 2006: President Musharraf said that Pakistan will set up Nine Engineering World Class Science and Technology Federal Universities by 2008 with foreign assistance. He said the institutions of higher learning would be established in collaboration with Italy, South Korea, Japan, France, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Austria and China. The Cost of building these Universities will be over Rs 96.5 billion.

The Vice Chancellors, Heads of department, Professors and Faculty of the planned university will be from these foreign Universities, while the examination system, the quality assurance followed, as well as the Degree awarded will also be from these foreign Universities.

14. The Government has approved to give at least 4% of GDP to Education in the 2007 budget.

15. In 1999-2000 there were 31 Public Universities. Now 2005-2006 there are 49 Public Universities.

Air University (established 2002); Institute of Space technology, ISB (established 2002); Sardar Bahadur Khan Women University, Quetta (established 2004); University of Science & Technology, Bannu (established 2005); University of Hazara (founded 2002); Malakand university, Chakdara (established 2002); Karakurum International university, Gilgit (established 2002); University of Gujrat (established 2004); Virtual University of Pakistan, Lahore (established 2002); Sarhad University of IT, Peshawar (established 2001); etc.

16. 6-member delegation of Australian Department of Education, Science & Technology and AusAID, visited Pakistan on the request of PM Shaukat Aziz in order to help Pakistan in its efforts to realign its TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) according to the market needs. Chairman NAVTEC, Altaf Saleem, informed the delegation about NAVTEC plans to increase the capacity to train one million people annually by 2010 from the present annual capacity of 320,000.

17. Defense Exports of Pakistan have crossed the $200 million mark as the country’s robust Defense manufacturing industry continues to expand. This was disclosed by Major General Syed Absar Hussain, Director General, Defense Export Promotion Organization (“International Defence Exhibition and Seminar (IDEAS) 2006″ held at karachi.).

18. President Musharraf inaugurated an 18 Mega Watt Naltar hydro power project, of over Rs. 1.36 billion. The project was completed in four years at Naltar near Gilgit.

19. Pakistan is now in Large-scale Nuclear expansion. The reactor under construction could produce over 200kg of weapons-grade plutonium per year, assuming it operates at full power for a modest 220 days per year. At 4 to 5 kilograms of plutonium per weapon, this stock would allow the production of 40-50 Nuclear weapons a year.

20. The Karachi Port Trust (KPT) and Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) of Hong Kong will sign a concession agreement for setting up a US$1 billion Deep-water container port, the first in Pakistan. KPT will invest $450 million for infrastructure development for the project. HPH will invest $557 million. In the first phase, a 1,500m quay wall will be built with a designed dept of 18m.

21. GILGIT: President Musharraf inaugurated the dry port in the border town of Sust, 200 km north of Gilgit. The Dry port, a Pakistan-China joint venture, was built in 2004 at a cost of Rs90 million, on a height of 10,000-foot.

22. Dec 2006: President Musharraf said that many canals, including the Thal and Raini canals, were being constructed for better utilization of the available water. He said Rs66 billion was being spent on the brick-lining of 87,000 canals in the country, adding that 6,000 new canals would be brick-lined next year.

23. The Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB) has approved expansion of Tarbela dam power project which would generate 960 MW costing $500 million.

24. President Musharraf recently inaugurated the Mirani Dam. Mirani Dam in Kech area of Mekran district, with a catchment area of 12,000 square kilometer, has been built in four years at a cost of Rs6 billion which includes Rs1.5 billion in compensation to the affected people. It will have a storage capacity of over 300,000 million acre feet of water.

25. Gomal Zam Dam: This project started in Aug 2002 and is expected to be completed in early 2008. It is located in the Damaan in NWFP. It is 437 feet high and will irrigate about 163,000 acres of land. The total costs amounts to Rs. 12 billion, with a gross storage of 1.14 MAF. It will produce 17.4 MW of electricity.

26. Mushrraf says the government is constructing the Katchi Canal, costing Rs40 billion, and that Punjab had been gracious to provide land for the 350 kilometer stretch which will pass through the province.

27. The Economic Coordination Committee decided to set up a $2-billion mega Oil refinery at Khalifa Point in district Hub, Balochistan. The refinery, commissioned by 2010, would have a maximum refining capacity of 13 million tons of petroleum products — higher than the country’s total existing capacity of 12.8 million tons.

28. Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation (PSMC) during the quarter July-Sept 2007 recorded the highest ever-sales figure of Rs 9.3012 billion.

29. The Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) sector of Pakistan has attracted over Rs 70 billion investments during the last five years as a result of liberal and encouraging policies of the government. Presently, some 1,765 CNG stations are operating in the country, in 85 cities and towns, and 1000 more would be set-up in the next three years. It has provided employment for 30,000 people in the country.

30. The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has registered 1,135 companies during the first quarter (July-September 2007). With the new registrations the total number of registered companies with SECP as of September 30 reached 50,125.

31. Telecom sector has attracted an investment of $ 9 billion in the last three years. It alone created 80,000 jobs directly and 500,000 jobs indirectly.

32. Former corrupt and incompetent Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, made only one motorway – M2 (Lahore – Islamabad). Under Musharraf 6 motorways are either completed or under construction:

•M1 (Islamabad to Peshawar) - (Rs.13 bn) - [155 km] - (started 2003 - Completed Oct 2007)
•M3 (Pindi to Faisalabad) - (Rs.5.6 bn) – [53 km] - (started 2002 – Completed 2004)
•M8 (Gwadar to Ratodero) – [1072 km] - (started 2004 – will complete 2009)
•M9 (Karachi to Hyderabad) – (Rs.6.3 bn) – [136 km]
•M10 (Karachi Northern bypass) – (Rs 3.5 bn) – [56 km] – (completed 2007)
•M11 (Lahore to Sialkot) – (Rs.23 bn) –[101 km] – (started 2006 – under construction)

33. Under Musharraf various highways under construction throughout the country. Including N5, N-25, N-35, N-45, N-50, N-55, N-65, N-70, N-75, N-80, S-1, etc.

34. General Pervez Musharraf inaugurated the Makran Coastal Highway (N-10) project in August 2001, consisting of Karachi-Gwadar, Pasni-Gwadar, and Ormara-Liari (Balochistan) Highways. The cost of the Liari-Ormara Highway was Rs3.9 billion and that of Pasni-Gwadar Highway, Rs2.8 billion respectively. The total length of Makran Coastal Highway is 533 kilometers.

35. 2-12-07: Sialkot International Airport Limited (SIAL) completed. The 1,002-acre airport is 13 km west of Sialkot and is linked by a road to Gujranwala, Wazirabad, Gujrat, Narowal, the Export Processing Zone (EPZ) and the Sialkot Dry Port Trust.

36. Ghandara International Airport (Islamabad) the first-ever green-field airport being built at a cost of $400 million; with a renowned international consultant, Louis Berger Group of USA. President Musharraf laid the foundation stone of the project on April 7, 2007. It will be completed by Dec 2010. Its total area is 3700 acres (15 km²).

37. Major Industrial estates are being developed under Musharraf’s vision: M3 industrial, Sundar industrial estate, Chakri industrial, etc.

38. Oct 2007: In the current fiscal year the Mining and Quarrying sector has registered a growth rate of 5.6 percent. Increased growth was propelled by strong growths recorded in magnetite (30 percent), dolomite (26.1 percent), Limestone (25.2 percent) and chromites.

39. The government has already started various initiatives, to discover and develop world-class copper-gold deposits in Chagai Baluchistan by Australian Firms which would fetch $500 million to $600 million per year.

40. Major reserves of COPPER & GOLD in Baluchistan’s Rekodiq area were discovered in early 2006. It has ranked Rekodiq among the world’s top seven copper reserves. The Rekodiq mining area has proven estimated reserves of 2 billion tons of copper and 20 million ounces of gold. According to the current market price, the value of the deposits has been estimated at about $65 billion, which would generate thousands of jobs.

41. Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC) recently approved 45 developmental projects in its meeting, including six revised projects, with a total cost of Rs 154.1 billion and with a foreign exchange component (FEC) of Rs 36.8 billion.

42. Rs 9.8 billion have been allocated for 91 different mega projects at Public Sector Universities across the province, said Sindh Governor Dr. Ishrat-ul-Ebad Khan.

43. Oct 2007: A fully functional TMS (Tax Management System), including profiling, withholding, return/payment filing, rectification, refunds, audit, and legal tracking is scheduled to be operational by 2007 in Pakistan, to process the tax year 2007 returns, according to World Bank.

44. The government is providing Sui Gas facility to areas of South Punjab at a cost of Rs 1.311 billion. A total of 1,138 kilometre gas pipeline is being laid. The districts benefiting from these schemes mainly include Multan, Khanewal, Bahawalnagar, Rajanpur, DG Khan, Vehari and Muzaffargarh.

45. The Karachi city government’s rehabilitation of Industrial zones and improvement plan for all four industrial zones of the city needs to be completed in 7-8 months. The projects are worth Rs 2.5 billion whereas the ‘beautification’ project worth Rs 4.5 billion.

46. 27-11-07: Pakistan Navy Ship Zarrar, the first of Multi-Role Tactical Platform (MRTP-33), was commissioned into Pakistan Navy at a ceremony at PN Dockyard.

47. 29-12-07: City Nazim Mustafa Kamal said the construction work of a 47-storey IT Tower in the vicinity of Civic Centre at a cost of $200m would start soon. Around 40,000 youth would get employment in the IT Tower. It will have 10,000 call centres, out of which 6,000 have already been booked so far.

48. The President approved the project of laying of 940-kilometre-long “standard gauge” Railway track between Gwadar and Quetta, with a cost of Rs 75 billion. A German firm won the contract.

49. To increase the income of farmers, the Government is investing Rs7.80 billion, under which a “Food Security Program” will be launched. Initially, it will be launched in 1,000 villages. The President said that Rs 3.60 billion would be invested in live-stocks and dairy sectors. About 1,200 model dairy farms and 2,950 cattle breeding farms will be established under this investment project.

50. Pakistan will launch a Self-controlled Remote Sensing Satellite System (RSSS), at a cost of Rs19.3 billion, to ensure strategic and unconditional supply of satellite remote sensing data for any part of the globe over the year. SUPARCO will implement it over a period of six years. President Musharraf has approved the project in principle.

51. The Governor of Sindh, Dr Ishrat-ul-Ebad Khan, inaugurated the DUHS Medical Research City with Dow Diagnostic Reference and Research Laboratories and Jinnah Genome Centre as its important components. He also laid the foundation stone for a library and sports complex which houses different constituent institutions of the university.

52. President Musharraf inaugurated a 50-bed state-of-the-art Workers Welfare Fund Kidney Centre. The first-ever kidney centre in Baluchistan, constructed on 7.5 acres, at a cost of Rs385 million, and having the diagnostic, dialysis, surgical and lab facilities, will help the people of this area.

53. Karachi: The building of the 50-bed Kidney Centre in Landhi has been completed. Minister Muhammad Adil Siddiqui said that the building of this centre had been built at a cost of Rs70 million.

54. CM Pervaiz Elahi inaugurated Pakistan’s first Software technology park (STP) on Ferozpur Road, to be implemented by Punjab IT Board (PITB). The Rs 1.5 billion project is set over an area of 32 kanals; will be completed in 12 months and is expected to directly create 10,000 jobs and generate economic activity of Rs 9 billion per year.

55. In what is considered a major leap for Pakistan, a Polytechnic Institute is being established to produce skilled workforce that will rescue the manufacturing industry from the clutches of foreign dependence. Being built in Korangi at a cost of Rs450 million, this government-funded institute will start operating in January 2007 and prepare 500 workers by the end of the first year, besides producing 22 different types of dies and moulds for aviation, telecom, pharmaceutical and other industries. Experts from Germany, Japan and Thailand assisted in developing its curriculum.

56. Police Act 1861 replaced by Police Order 2002 after 141 years. Police force divided into three separate wings: Watch and ward, Investigation and Prosecution.

57. Federal Minister for Commerce, in order to modernize tobacco farming in the country, is setting up a state-of-the-art Tobacco Research Centre in Bunner. Annually 8 million kilograms of Virginia tobacco (fine quality), worth Rs 9.2 billion is cultivated in Bunner. Under construction.

Post-Musharraf scenario please … By Murad Ansari.

And Pakistan would revert back to being the 2nd most corrupt country in the world (declared by Transparency International in 1995 during BB rule) from 42nd in 2007 according to TI (FYI India is ranked 36th on the same list).
GDP growth rate, which has been over 7% for the last 5 years, would drop down to 2 to 3 percent like in the 90s.
Exports which grew from $9 billion in 1999 to $18 billion in 2007 and are poised to cross $25 billion in next couple of years would go back to $ 9 billion or less like in the 90s.
FDI, which is over $6 billion in 2006-2007 would go down to the level of 1999 i.e. $350 million.
All industrial sectors, which have been showing double digit growth rate, would turn into sick units like in the 90’s.
Pakistan would fall back into the trap of IMF and our leaders would be going around in the world with a begging bowl asking for loans just to pay off the interest.
Tax revenues, which grew from Rs 200 billion-Rs 300 billion to over a trillion rupees in 2007, would be used to buy more palaces in the U.K.
Poverty, which declined from 35% in 1999 to around 23% in 2007 according to ADB, CIA World Factbook, World Bank etc. would this time rise to God knows how many percent.
Missile monuments would be erected on every major intersection of Islamabad (like Nawaz Shareef did) to tell the people how hard we are working to solve their problems.
Hollow slogans like “Qarz Utaro Mulk Sanwaro” (rough trans: “remove the debt; improve the country”) would come back into fashion.

PPP govt has one face for domestic audience, another for world community

Monday, November 17, 2008
By Mehtab Haider

ISLAMABAD: While admitting substantial reduction in poverty by over 12 per cent from 2001 due to the improved economic situation, the PPP- led government has endorsed the poverty figure of 22.3 per cent of the Aziz-Musharraf government in its latest official document titled “Draft Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP-II).”

The PPP government has dual faces ——— one for the consumption of domestic audience and the second for the international community, including the multilateral and bilateral donors, in order to convince them for lending money in order to remove economic woes.

The government is preparing the much awaited PRSP-II document on the basis of which it will get multi-billion dollars in the next three- to five- year period. For domestic audience, sources pointed out that Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance Shaukat Tareen had said recently in the Senate that the people living below the poverty line comprised 40 per cent of the total population. But his ministry’s official document states that the poverty level stood at 22.3 per cent in accordance with the latest available survey of 2005-06.

The advisor had used the survey of the Planning Commission’s panel of economist in which they used the expenditure data of 2005-06 and applied recent inflation number in order to jack up the poverty figures from 23.3 per cent to 35 per cent.

But all independent economists as well as donors were amazed that how the incumbent regime was comparing apple with oranges. “There is no need to change goals for analysing the poverty figure because no one will trust the government,” said one of the officials.

The government has collected data for the Household Income Expenditure Survey 2007-08 and on the basis of this data the poverty survey will be done within the ongoing financial year 2008-09.

The PRSP-II is meant to address the foreign countries as well as the donors’ community in which the government concedes that the poverty was on decline during the PRSP period from 34.6 per cent in 2001-02 to 23.3 per cent in 2005-06.

“Poverty in both urban and rural areas declined from 2001-02 to 2005-06 as urban poverty declined from 22.7 per cent in 2001 to 13.1 per cent in 2005-06 and rural poverty reduced from 39.3 per cent in 2001 to 27 per cent in 2005-06,” states the PRSP-II document.

The PRSP-II further states that the poverty in all its forms and manifestations witnessed decline in the recent years as the extremely poor stood at 1.1 per cent in 2001, which declined to 0.5 per cent in 2005-06. The ultra poor stood at 10.8 per cent in 2001 that declined to 5.4 per cent in 2005-06. The poor stood at 22.5 per cent in 2001, which reduced to 16.4 per cent in 2005-06. Educational attainment and occupation household heads appear to be highly correlated with poverty incidence of the households. According to the Pakistan Social and Living Standard Measurement (PSLM) survey 2005-06 data, educational attainment of household heads differ starkly between the rich and the poor.

Among the poorest 20 per cent population (or quintile), nearly 70 per cent household heads did not complete class I; however, among the richest quintile, only 20 per cent household heads did not complete class I.

On the other hand, almost no heads in the poorest quintile completed class II or more while more than 30 per cent of heads in the richest quintile completed class II or more. In 2005-06, nearly 40 per cent of household heads in the poorest quintile held the so-called “elementary occupations” while less than 20 per cent in the richest quintile held the elementary occupations.