Addressing Future Fest, Pakistan’s largest tech conference and expo in Lahore recently, I found myself facing a well informed and technical savvy audience. I took the liberty of speaking about Pakistan and the perception of the situation we are facing, a topic very close to my heart which I felt would also strike a chord with the audience. Pakistan is going through some difficult times, economically as well as politically, some of our own making, to make matters worse we continue to remain in the crosshairs of those who would hurt our country. A very important feature for securing internal security and the economy is the Local Bodies (LB) system. Terrorists need money, they need safe houses and they need help from organized crime, without this they will be unable to attacks. In a functioning LB system, the people become the eyes and ears, noticing or becoming suspicious of even the most insignificant happenings in a given area. Even the best intelligence agencies will take some time to firstly, be aware of and secondly, locate would be terrorists, by then it could be too late. LB thus becomes essential for internal security. LB is also good for the economy, it can tell you the price of items on the shelves, what is the price of a Tandoor, other items of necessity, etc, and if there are buffer stocks in one mohallah these can be moved into other areas to keep prices down. No politics is involved here, it is a genuine requirement, participatory democracy requires Local Bodies. Anyone who wants to get elected to the Provincial Assembly or the National Assembly must first get elected at the local level. Perhaps most crucially, the ability of local governments to collect taxes and release their own schedule of taxation allows them to make their own money and spend it on themselves rather than waiting for the benevolence of the provincial or federal government.
At a Chief Executive Officer’s (CEO’s) Club Conference recently I asked CEOs present as to how many of them had sustained losses, strangely enough no answered in the affirmative. When I asked the banks’ executives if they had not reaped exorbitant profits, silence greeted me. But then, we do have this economic crisis. Pakistan, by the Grace of Allah, is a country that can actually feed itself and clothe itself. This might come as a surprise to many but we have the second largest copper and gold reserves in the world, we have the third largest coal reserves in the world, we have the fourth largest cotton and cotton industry together in the world, we are the fifth largest milk producing country in the world, the sixth largest rice producing country in the world and the world’s seventh largest wheat producing. We have the nuclear know how and we means to deliver them and yet here we are, in a royal bind!
Pakistan has bumper stocks of wheat, mostly 24-25 million tons on an average, I think we are almost self-sufficient in sugar. The one troubling factor is the ‘from farm to the market’, what farmers get for their produce is much lower than prices in the market, there is a big gap here that is covered by hoarders and profiteers, better known to us as ‘Middlemen’, or ‘aarthis’, a ‘respectable’ name for want of anything better. There is no check or balance to control those prices and that is why we are facing ‘mahngai’ or skyrocketing prices. It is common knowledge that these aarthis manipulate prices in connivance with officials of various procurement agencies when the farmers bring their produce to the markets.
The flight of our foreign exchange (FE) is yet another problem that bedevils us. In December 2022 the Chairman of Pakistan’s Forex Association confirmed that over the past few months, about $2 billion entered Afghanistan through the country’s border, legally and illegally. This is largely due to Pakistan’s “flawed” immigration and trade policies and border controls. Where Pakistan is concerned, these outflows are exacerbating a rapidly developing economic crisis. Smuggling of US Dollars has also been boosted by the Taliban’s ban on the use of Pakistan’s rupee as legal tender.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan were always difficult right from day one. When Pakistan emerged as an independent country in 1947, Afghanistan was the only country that voted against Pakistan’s admission to the United Nations. Since that day, relationship between the two countries has remained strained as deep disputes remain. There can be no doubt that Afghanistan is surviving on Pakistan’s economy, at the cost of Pakistan’s economy. Take our atta prices, Afghanis like to have fine Atta, most of our flour Mills make coarse Atta, except for certain mills in the Rahimyar Khan sector. About 4 to 5 million tons of wheat are crushed and go to Afghanistan as fine Atta, so when the Atta goes to Afghanistan, the prices of Atta goes up for us. Sugar is another story but I have no inclination to approach the National Accountability Bureau but I feel some of those influentials should be taken to task and must not be allowed to politicize, the way they have hoarded and manipulated sugar prices.
If our wheat is being smuggled into Afghanistan to feed Afghans instead of our own citizens, that is bad enough but our foreign exchange (US dollars) goes to Afghanistan to feed their economy, that is even worse. We are catering to two economies of two countries. 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? Can there be doubt that they are not involved in the flight of dollars from Pakistan? Why are we not taking drastic steps to curtail this smuggling? 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?
According to a Dawn report the government allowed the import of 2200 luxury vehicles in the first six months of the current fiscal year while the country was crippled with strict foreign exchange control even for imports of essential consumer items and industrial goods. The piling up of containers touched almost 8500 in the first half of this year at ports in Pakistan and according to Custom’s data more than 95% of these containers were held up at ports due to non-opening of Letters of Credits. We have got to do some very drastic measures for the time being, at least stop all imports for a couple of years.
From day one of its existence the current Taliban government has put Pakistan in a difficult situation internationally. Pakistan gave refuge to millions of Afghans, allowing them not only to stay but also do business, this upset the Pakistani economy in no small way. Today Karachi is the second largest Afghan city after Kabul. While caring for the wounded in our hospitals, Pakistan allowed the Taliban elite and their families’ safe havens in Peshawar and Quetta. Apart from the economic woes and the ethnic strife Pakistani Taliban received support from the Afghans and a wave of extremist ideology and terrorism swept our country. It took years of intense efforts and sacrifice by the Pakistan Army and other security forces to curb extremism and terrorism. As it is we have suffered an image problem internationally for our tacit support over three decades. By international perception we support a government that discriminates against ethnic minorities, prevents women and girls from access to education and makes them wear shuttlecock burqas in public. The insistence of the Taliban on Pashtun cultural traits that have no basis in Islam is supporting and instigating reactionary social forces on our own population.
In my article of June 11, 2022 titled “Most Ungrateful Nation on Earth?” I had written, quote, “It is about time we prevent food from being exported to or smuggled into Afghanistan especially in the face of looming food scarcity in our own country and the rise in prices. Borders to Afghanistan should be closed so as to also help our fight against TTP attacks from Afghan soil. Afghan refugees in Pakistan should be contained in camps and not allowed to roam around freely in the country. The Pakistani generosity in condoning TTP in Afghanistan by the Taliban govt has to end. We cannot afford appeasing and/or mollycoddling a nation that has proven to the most ungrateful nation on this Earth!” unquote.
