News reports that Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) industries slowed to just 1.2 percent in the month of August, and eight out of 15 major industries recorded negative year-on-year growth according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), ought to seriously unnerve the government since it takes the wind out of the sails of the economic turnaround it had us all waiting for ever since the lockdown was lifted. This is a pretty abrupt change of trend since jut the month before, in July, LSM figures recorded a five percent jump when compared to the same period last year. Now everybody will be fearing that September numbers will be even worse because of all the excessive rains that disturbed trade and manufacturing activity.
Going forward, the government has set itself the rather ambitious growth target of 2.1 percent for the outgoing fiscal year even though the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects the figure closer to around one percent. That is extremely low growth for any country, especially one so deep in debt like Pakistan, since the repayment schedule will not change at all except the little breathing space that the G20 moratorium has got us. So another round of acute contraction of the economy might well be on the cards, which means another spike in the unemployment rate. The latter will worry the government even more than the larger economy since half the electoral cycle is already over and people will not forget the economic wounds they suffer now even at the time of the election.
So far all the government has said by way of explanation, whether about its economic policies or the trouble it sometimes faces in terms of diplomacy, is that everything was somebody else’s fault. And now this argument, which everybody bought early on since the last few administrations had indeed been eating off the fat of the land for all this time, just does not sell with the people anymore. Therefore, the ruling party needs to realise that the only way of making things better is by initiating and implementing all the reforms it talked about for all the years it was in the opposition. From civil services to the economy, particularly the export sector, everything is in need of serious repair. It is unfortunate that PTI seemed to know pretty well just what it needed to do before it came to power, but nothing became of all the big plans once it did.
On ‘Indian agents’
The government ought to be a little careful about dubbing opposition protestors, especially former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and those speaking for him, “agents of India” in a bid to discredit the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) and its agenda of toppling the ruling party. These are, after all, times of hybrid warfare and the enemy stands ready to take advantage of any and all of our weaknesses; especially if those in power get into the habit of blaming those out of it of acting in the interest of the intelligence agencies of an enemy government. Now the Indians will be only too pleased to help plant seeds of doubt in the minds of the more impressionable Pakistanis; making them suspect the loyalty and sincerity of their own leaders.
The government must also consider the point that accusing opposition parties of acting in India’s interests as a knee-jerk reaction to their protests is actually a rather crude way of accepting that PTI does not have credible answers to some of their strongest accusations at the moment. This approach should be done away with immediately especially, as PTI says time and again, it has never asked for nor received any favours from the so-called establishment, especially for coming to power. In fact experience in almost all working democracies has shown that the best way to rebut any manner of criticism is to shed light on the government’s performance.
That, however, might be a bit of a problem for the ruling party. Because while it is true that it has combated the coronavirus better than most governments across the world, and received due appreciation from all corners for it, its performance when it comes to some of any government’s core functions had left a little something to be desired. And one of the things that have stood out about this government the most is its inability to keep the economy healthy; especially its absolute failure to control prices of the most essential items, including food. Since that is the part of governance that affects the common man more than anything else, it is little surprise that the opposition is able to build its case so easily. For it doesn’t make those ruling the country look very good when newspaper headlines in the fall of 2020 tell about double-digit food inflation since at least August 2018. Rather than expose all the “Indian agents” among us, the government is advised to keep its eye on the ball and improve its governance as well as service delivery.
