Mohammad Jamil
Last week, the U.S. State Department told reporters that Pakistan would not receive a loan under the so-called Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program to finance the purchase of eight U.S.-made F-16 Block-52 fighters due to opposition by U.S. lawmakers. Pakistan had earlier reached an understanding with the US for buying eight F-16 planes for $700 million, whereby Pakistan was required to pay about $270 million and the US was supposed to provide the rest. According to a report, among the key reasons behind the Congressional hold were concerns that “Pakistan had not taken enough action against the Haqqani network; jail sentence awarded to Shakeel Afridi – the physician who had cooperated with the US in tracking Osama bin Laden; and fears about Pakistani nuclear program.” Of course, Pakistan successfully used F-16 against militants in FATA and decimated their networks and infrastructure without any collateral damage.
The question is why we have to depend on the US and the West, and why we have not been able to make Pakistan self-reliant? Indeed, Pakistan is endowed with enormous material resources, hardworking people and above all wealth of cultural, historical and philosophical resources to make it not only a self-reliant but a great nation. Unfortunately, both the state and the society remained clueless as to how to capitalize on these rich resources, release immense latent energy and reach the ultimate goal of prosperity, social cohesion and solidarity of the people. The profligacy of the rulers in general and politics of power and pelf brought the country to brink of economic collapse, and the governments had to depend on international financial institutions to meet trade and current account deficits. This dependency syndrome had become obvious when Pakistan was coerced by the US into joining the war on terror after 9/11 events.
Pakistan had terrible leadership at the helm especially from 2008 to 2013. Barring a few honorable exceptions, loot and plunder and corruption of the rulers in general and internecine conflicts between the political parties during sixty five years have brought the country to brink of disaster. Pakistan is passing through a critical phase. Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan governments face almost identical problems. As for one, the ruinous energy crisis, without resolving which the revival of sagging national economy would remain just a pipedream and all plans for creating job opportunities, alleviation of poverty and promoting national progress and prosperity would fall apart. Anyhow, people have given the mandate to the present government and now they expect from them to work out their governance priorities meticulously.
Those at the helm at federal and provincial levels must understand that non-performance or inaction is just no option at all in the given conditions. The electorate had made it more than evident that it would not accept official insouciance, inaction, incompetence and graft. They expect from the government to perform and deliver. The PML-N has been accusing the previous government for ineptness, incompetence and corruption. The party’s hierarchy has been claiming that it has experts and managers to efficiently and effectively run the government sector enterprises, but now it has sought the easy way out i.e., to privatize these enterprises. Apart from power generation and distributing companies, Pakistan Steel Mills, PIA and other national assets are in the line awaiting privatization. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chaudhry Nisar should oversee the process of privatization, which should be transparent.
Of course, the country is confronted with a myriad of problems, all complex and gigantic not within the easy human grasp to tackle, so they will have to fix their priorities as to what needs to be done and what to take up first and then set out earnestly to pursue those priorities vigorously. Otherwise, they would be overwhelmed by the mind-boggling multiplicity of the problems and get bogged down, ending up in solving none. Improving law and order and overcoming energy crisis are must for revival of sagging national economy, which will help create job opportunities. Indeed, there pervades such a startling sloth among the provincial hierarchy’s ranks to get over the preliminaries that they are unaware of the tough fight they have at their hands. The administration throughout Pakistan has to further tighten up its faltering law-enforcement apparatus and should not leave any chinks in its armour.
