As the judicial probe of impropriety against prime minister
Nawaz Sharif approaches its logical conclusion, there is a crescendo of noises
by the ruling party that the imminent disqualification of their leader would
apply brakes to the wheels of progress in the country. It is true that the motorcade
of the prime minister’s daughter has grown from 3 to 15 vehicles and some
highly cosmetic infrastructure development projects have emerged in Lahore
which are of little use to the general public. There has been no improvement in
education, health or water, gas and power supplies services. Crimes are as
prevalent, roads are as unsafe and jobs are as scarce as before the PML(N)
government came into power.
Let us look at some of the statistics.
1.
Power Supply: The
government has been claiming that there has been tremendous economic and
industrial progress as in the following tweet of the Defense and Power
minister:
If you add the average generation and shortfall you get the
total electrical power demand for the year in question. Simple arithmetic giver
the average demand figures as follows:
Year June 2012 June 2013 June
2016 June 2017
Total Power Demand 17070 19742 19684 20841
This shows that there has been a growth of only 5.57 percent
in 4 years ie less than 1.4 % annually which is even less than population
growth rate. Thus there has been no growth in either industry or people’s
standard of living. Actually there has been perceptible deterioration.
2.
Trade: The following trade
data has been taken from the government website and tells a sad story of the
utter failure of the businessman prime minister:
There has been a steady fall in the volume
and value of exports over the last 4 year period and the government has done
nothing to arrest the decline. The textile
and garment manufacturers have been running from pillar to post but have not
had any success.
3.
Stock Exchange: The success of Karachi Stock Exchange now
Pakistan Stock Exchange has been told as the great achievement of the incumbent
government. Here is the 5 year progress report taken from their own website:
Above chart shows that although the 100
index has been blown out of proportion, the number of listed companies has
remained stagnant and a meager increase in base capital has taken place. The
only IPO in 2017 so far was for an iron works owned by Sharif family. During this period there have been about half
a dozen upheaval and mini-crashes in which more than 4% market capitalization
was lost in one day causing heavy losses to small investors.
4.
Currency Parity: When the
present govt. came to power in 2013, the PKR-USD parity stood at Rs. 108. Mr.
Dar played some quick tricks and brought it down to Rs.98 and touted it as a
financial miracle. Soon afterwards heavy borrowings were made from WB and
others and the parity was maintained at on average at Rs. 104 against the
demands of exporters. Recently it jumped back to Rs. 108 and SBP declared that
it reflects the current economic situation. The result of maintaining low
parity is that Pakistani families that depend on remittances from family
members working abroad have lost nearly 400 billion rupees in money exchange
and textile and garments have become uncompetitive and reduced production and
cut jobs. The only beneficiaries of this policy are those who have been sending
their money abroad for buying properties in Dubai, Qatar and UK etc as they got
more dollars for their Rupees. It has
also helped to show higher GDP in dollar terms to fool the world.
If one takes all above facts into consideration, it seems
that the government of Mr. Nawaz Sharif has been working intentionally to harm
national interests and the people of Pakistan. Take into account the Dawn story
plant against the armed forces, the tirades against the judiciary and the
family friendship with pm Modi and other Indians with deteriorating border
situation and silence on the arrest of Indian terror mastermind one can’t help
but wonder if the stage is being set for something like the French Revolution.
Swift justice and early elections may avert a disaster, I
hope and pray.
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