Opinion: Capital suggestion / Sunday, September 28, 2014
NAYA AUR PURANA PAKISTAN
Dr Farrukh Saleem
Purana Pakistan
Purana Pakistan has six characteristics.
One, elected leaders treat state assets as their personal estates.
Two, elected leaders mutate civil servants into their personal serfs.
Three, taxes are collected and then spent to fulfill rulers’ priorities.
Four, monetary rewards of political power are extremely high.
Five, there is massive under-investment in human capital.
Six, power projects are being inaugurated that would produce power at an astronomical rate of Rs41 per unit.
Here are the proofs of the above six.
One, Rehman Malik had a PIA aircraft wait for him for two long hours.
Two, on June 17, Punjab Police killed 14 unarmed citizens.
Three, budgetary allocation for the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is Rs160 million while the annual budget for the PM House is Rs770 million.
Four, Pakistanis are getting more and more indebted by the minute while assets of the ruling class keep on increasing by the day.
Five, Nigeria is the only country on the face of the planet with more out-of-school children than Pakistan.
Six, the cost of the Nandipur Power Project has gone up from $329 million to $847 million and if diesel is used to produce power it will cost Rs41 per unit.
This is what purana Pakistan is mostly about.
Admittedly, Imran Khan has no comprehensive blueprint for Naya Pakistan; neither does Allama Tahirul Qadri. What they have done, however, is exposed the purana Pakistan to 180 million Pakistanis. And Pakistanis hate what they see in purana Pakistan.
Here are the proofs that Pakistanis hate what they see in purana Pakistan.
One, passengers threw Rehman Malik off the PIA aircraft – something that has no precedence in our political history.
Two, police high-command has now started demanding written orders from their elected leaders in order to shoot at unarmed citizens.
General (r) Mirza Aslam Baig, for reasons only known to him, may want to call it a foreign conspiracy against Pakistan but, to be certain, throwing Rehman Malik out the PIA aircraft is no American conspiracy against Pakistan. To be sure, police high-command demanding written orders from their elected leaders is no Jewish conspiracy against Pakistan. This is all about Pakistani middle class revolting against purana Pakistan.
NAYA PAKISTAN
Naya Pakistan has to be a contractual state. Naya Pakistan has to have a social contract between the voters and their elected leaders. The social contract must cover three things.
One, who will pay taxes?
Two, how much taxes will be paid by each taxpayer?
Three, how will these taxes be spent?
Naya Pakistan has to have three things – elections, accountability and a responsive government (purana Pakistan has had plenty of elections but neither accountability nor a responsive government).
Here are four steps to a naya Pakistan.
One, alter spending priorities as per voters’ needs and demands.
Two, invest in education and health.
Three, invest in justice.
Four, privatize all public sector enterprises in a competitive, transparent process.
The constitution is not under threat.
The democratic system is not under threat.
Yes, the old political order is under threat.
And, yes, the custodians of the old political order are feeling threatened.
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com
Twitter: @saleemfarrukh
