Suggestions for improving economy with non-traditional ways..!

PAKISTAN has accumulated expensive loans, a huge trade gap and a big current account deficit, declining remittances and state-owned enterprises are incurring losses of over $ 5 billion per annum. There is massive corruption in society, so much so that the size of the black economy has overtaken the country’s annual budget, money laundering is in excess of $10 billion annually; and a steeply depreciating rupee.

This is a sure recipe for disaster. Thus a radical change is the need of the hour.

Our political parties have shown no resolve to address the issues afflicting the country. It seems they neither have the capacity nor the will to deliver.

Perhaps, the system was never designed to serve the people. In view of the foregoing, it is the most appropriate time for a surgical corrective action.

We need a consensus government of young, qualified and honest people, who are less than 45 years of age at the Centre and the provinces to achieve the following six tasks in short and medium-term period.

1) Reviving the economy of Pakistan.

2) Draft a new social contract for every sector with special focus on the have-nots.

3) Devise a governance plan, which should be free from the blackmailing of the mafias, lobbies and the pressure groups.

4) Further enhance the scope of CPEC projects.

5) Develop mechanism to stop corruption and money laundering.

6) Plan up a robust strategy to bring back the wealth stashed abroad by Pakistanis.

To ensure that the country stays on the right track, every economic activity must be documented while taxes and duties should be reduced to bare minimum not exceeding 10% in any case.

I am in sixties, and have no qualms in admitting that our generation has failed Pakistan. Now it is high time, we must hand over the mantle to those who are qualified, energetic, capable and less than 45 years old.

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad
Dawn 24 October 2017

Post Script:

The cardinal rule to build a sustainable economy is to live within the means; for which austerity is the secret of success.

In Pakistan, we can easily control our expenses, if the following statement is adopted as a motto/mission; and implemented as an official policy, and is also displayed in the offices of the civil and military bureaucracy, just below the portrait of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah Sahab:

“Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him.”