Welcome to all the panelists and welcome to everybody. Talking about reshaping Pakistan I want to start with the people on the stage, you’ve already heard Muzaffar Hayat Piracha speaking about his fantastic company, Airlink.
I had the honor of hosting Tariq Malik during his speech in VRG’s Breakfast Meeting for the WEF’s Edison Alliance in Davos this year. People were astonished as to what Pakistan has achieved in IT management and other related matters which are linked with IT. It’s no secret that the “Asaan Mobile Account (AMA)” is possibly a great success because of the enthusiasm and spirit Tariq Malik put into it as Chairman NADRA and I thank him for it. At the CEO’s Club Conference about two months ago I asked the CEOs present there as how many of you have had losses, nobody could confirm about any. Turning to the banks I asked how many of you have not had exorbitant profits and they could not deny it. So why do we have this economic crisis? This is a country that can actually feed itself and clothe itself but we have problems. If you have our wheat smuggled into Afghanistan to feed Afghans instead of our own citizens that is bad enough but if we have to have US dollars going to Afghanistan to feed their economy, I think that is even worse. So actually our economy is not really looking after one country we are actually looking after two countries. I have said this again and I say this very clearly that when the country’s existence is in danger because of this tremendous outflow of US dollars, why are we not closing down the foreign exchange dealers today?
We know they take the money out of the country, why aren’t we taking drastic steps? In order to tighten the belt why are we allowing the Import of luxury cars of different brands on the roads when we’ve got assembly plants? We’ve got to do drastic things for the time being, at least for a couple of years stop all the imports. Talking about investment let me tell you when I was last year at Davos, I hosted the Sindh Chief Minister and the Sindh Minister for Investment, their Presentations not only favorably shocked the small number of investors gathered but it also surprised me also because I personally did not know all the things we had to offer. The Presentation was fantastic but there was no follow-up this year. We were expecting some people to come but for some bureaucratic reason they did not come. On the other hand,many skeptical did investors turn up, you can imagine the frustration they had. This is what is wrong with your country, you have to follow up. Potential Investment in the country is the sort of initiative that people have to hear about and see all that is possible in this country. We have surplus wheat in the country but somehow the wheat disappears at the time of making it into atta. You know, yes we have to import edible oil and we have to import fuel, etc but we can cut it down by increasing domestic initiatives in alternatives. You can go to any market in this country and you will find it always full of people, they have the buying power but as Tariq Bajwa sahib has said, they just don’t pay their taxes and if they do not pay the taxes and the government doesn’t have the money then they have to turn to the IMF. Nobody likes the conditions that IMF imposes on us but we have no choice at the moment but to take steps which are very, very drastic.
Tariq Malik sahib is not here. Here let me tell you a homegrown success story about the World Bank’s “Financial Inclusion Scheme”, which is to include 80 percent of Pakistan’s adult population that does not have bank accounts. This is sponsored by two regulators, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA), this scheme has been in the works for almost 10 years now. We were one of the companies that went into this venture, at 3 years ago we were ready with that, the Switch and we found that no other comparable Switch existed. So, today we are the only licensee in the country as far as the licence is concerned and a target was given to us by the end of December 2023 of 3 million accounts. Today as we speak there are 7.2 million accounts and growing every day. Are we recognized in Pakistan? Not many people know about it because for about the time the media campaign was supposed to come out from the State Bank the floods came and the people who were to be targetted by that media campaign were affected by the floods. Even then with 7.2 million AMA accounts and over 50 million transactions have taken place with 50 billion value transactions. Are we recognized in Pakistan? No. But let me tell you the World Economic Forum (WEF) representative on the Pakistan Breakfast stage in Davos recognized that we are now the third country in the world as far as “Digital Financial Inclusion” is concerned. We found that no other comparable switch existed and this Switch was made by people having average age of 27. People have talked about the potential of our youth, it is true. Our youth is second to none provided we give them the wherewithal to do. The World Bank recognizes that it’s the only switch in the world, please recognize this, it is the only Switch in the world that connects 16 Banks having branches license to four telcos (in fact even the Swift Telco is connected now) and is a fact of life today. Today you can reach out to flood affected areas, to education, whether you’re doing transaction or with Kisan (agriculture), doing education transactions. Professor Mushtaq who was sitting here talked about putting it into the public school system. Pakistan is a great country but we must learn to fight each other only on issues of importance, not bring down each other on issues of no importance. When the crisis is upon us, all of us must work together whichever party we belong to, whichever sect we belong to, etc. We have to come together we must make sure that take this challenge and turn it into an opportunity.
As Muzaffar has said, yes we have the wherewithal, we can do things but we cannot turn that to our advantage. We are our own worst enemies because merit in Pakistan is a disqualifier, it is not a qualifier. I especially came down today and I do not want to say this, but I have to undergo a major heart procedure in the next few days but as Nisar asked me with great love and affection, I took the risk and decided to come. So I have to go down to the Cleveland Clinic in a few days The doctors say it is supposedly a difficult procedure and that now it’s become relatively simple unless a complication requires open heart surgery. When I close my eyes before the anesthesia sets in, I will remember to say,
Pakistan, thank you for being my country!
