Ayoung medical doctor, the sole breadwinner for his three minor children and wife, has committed suicide in Sindh after he was not paid his salary for the past four months. He was appointed by the provincial government on contractual basis to attend to Covid-19 patients. The physician killed himself a week ago, but the incident received little attention in the media as such news do. After getting fed up with official apathy, the doctor’s dependents and colleagues have highlighted the issue. The physician’s relatives are unable to support his wife and children. The young doctor has apparently been driven to take to the ultimate step due to his desperate economic circumstances. He has left no suicide note.
Both society and the government bear the responsibility for pushing a highly qualified young man to the point of taking his own life. When one is left high and dry and sees no help coming from any quarter, they are left with no choice but to turn their backs on society itself. Last year the provincial government had hired 1,100 doctors and 1,600 nurses on contract basis to deal with the situation arising out of the coronavirus pandemic. Informed circles claim that these physicians and nurses are being paid with considerable delay. This claim should be viewed in the light of the delays in the payment of salaries of other government departments’ employees and the inordinate delays in clearance of retired employees’ pension papers and their dues.
A total of 767 persons have committed suicide between 2016 and 2020 in Sindh. These are officially recorded cases. Tharparkar, Badin, Dadu, Umerkot and Sanghar districts top the list of suicides. Considering the gravity of the situation, the government should set up a commission to look into the causes of the rising incidents of self-annihilation and recommend corrective measures to stop the dangerous trend. How many suicides will be attributed to mental health issues? The authorities should be more focused on the economic needs of the people.
Unfulfilled pledges
In the wake of the August 2020 monsoon devastation in Karachi, the PTI-led federal government and the PPP’s Sindh government had pledged to collaborate with each other “for the sake of ridding the long-neglected mega city of its myriad problems”, leaving their respective political considerations aside. Hence came the “unprecedented” Rs1.1 trillion development package aimed at transforming the country’s financial capital by building its civic and communications infrastructure, in a shambles for years, on modern lines. The package for what is called ‘Karachi Transformation Plan’ was announced on September 5, 2020 by Prime Minister Imran Khan himself, declaring that the governments at the Centre and in Sindh province had decided to deal with Karachi’s problems “together”.
However, political expediency was soon at play – as already predicted by many. The pledges of coordination and collaboration fizzled out in a couple of months. Right now the Karachi Transformation Plan is only crawling ahead, as the vital element of togetherness is sadly missing. Each side blames the other for non-cooperation and thus for the sufferings of the people. Last week, the two sides were again at their bickering best during the Prime Minister’s visit to Sukkur where he unveiled a “historic” Rs446 billion development package to launch various projects – concerning power supply, irrigation, sports and communication – in backward areas of Sindh.
In a swipe at the PPP, the PM likened the province with the ruins of Moenjodaro. The taunt, however, did not go unanswered. Murtaza Wahab, the Sindh government’s spokesperson, reminded the PM of the various “pending” packages and schemes he had “similarly” announced for Karachi, Hyderabad and Thar. This prompted Asad Umar, the federal minister, to get into the act along with the PTI version. And the war of words continues. So does the people’s wait for the promises of the leaders to come good.
Textile dependency
The import bill for March was approaching record levels while the trade gap significantly widened – both worrying signs for the current account balance. sugar, fertilisers and pesticides, automobiles, mobile phones, and industrial machinery. The year-on-year increase is 71%, which is also significant because the full effect of the Covid-19 pandemic was just starting to hit the local and global economies last March, meaning that demand declines had not fully set in.
This would not be a problem in itself if exports had shown similar growth, but that was not the case. Exports The import bill stood at $5.66 billion in March, mainly on account of oil and gas, wheat andincreased 31% to $2.36 billion in March, which would generally be considered a strong performance if not for the fact that imports had ballooned. Analysts have noted that part of the spike in imports is attributable to agricultural commodities. Pakistan usually exports wheat, sugar, and cotton, but ending up importing them in recent months due to poor crop yields. In fact, total food group imports and fertiliser imports both doubled, while significant increases were also seen in oil and gas and automobiles — the latter almost tripled. A positive in the import stats was a 72% surge in machinery. However, power generators and cell phones, rather than industrial machinery, made up a large share of the increase.
Meanwhile, textile exports were up 30%, continuing a recent trend of positive growth. But the data also shows Pakistan’s dependency on the sector — textiles made up 60% of total exports. Persisting failure to diversify has made Pakistan export-commodity-dependent, a negative term for countries where more than 60% of total merchandise exports are composed of commodities. In our case, it is literally a single commodity.
This does not mean that we need to stop supporting a lucrative sector. It is still a money-maker with growth potential. What we need to do is diversify so that we can grow and reduce commodity dependence. In the words of former UN Conference on Trade and Development Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi, “Given that commodity dependence often negatively impacts a country’s economic development, it is important and urgent to reduce it to make faster progress towards meeting the sustainable development goals.”
