Balancing acts in economy?

[Neo]

Balancing acts in economy?

DR ZAFAR ALTAF

ARTICLE (October 16, 2010) : The Centre became extremely pervasive during the tyrannical rule of the last government and it continues to be so for the simple reason that the issues that require effort are the one's in which trust has to be built and in which the local effort has to be strengthened for the simple reason that the centre is in no position to work on its own.

The tragedy is that the federation, if federation it be, the right to work is based on an establishment of trust. If trust is not built, then one might as well forget doing anything worthwhile. How do the tangibles work? Let us look at the way efficiency is built into the system. The centre can hardly be in a position to do anything and if one recalls that the federation, during the last government made a hash of the drought mitigation programme where resources were provided by the international donors.

That the centre used the drought programme to furnish the room of the then deputy chairman of Planning Commission and as many as eighty-seven people were recruited for drought mitigation while the programme at the centre of the drama were excluded-Balochistan, Thar in Sindh and Cholistan in Punjab suffered the consequences of the expenditure meant for another place and used for personal gratification.

As things stand, the intervention in all the three areas had to be different and commensurate with the ecology of the areas. Uniformity is the enemy of liberty for it lays down the parameters blindly for ecology. If we go a step back, then equality is the enemy of liberty and too much liberty can destroy efficiency. What then is the answer?

The answer seems to be in balancing the various aspects. That in the case of intangibles requires a certain amount of dexterity and a certain amount of proper unselfishness. Hard to get these days when everyone is grabbing everything. A trend started by the Shaukat Aziz-Musharraf corruption syndicate.

In all this, the role of discretion is a major one, for discretion allows one the right to make mistakes, unintended mistakes and it is possible to differentiate between unintended and intended ones. The intended ones are in the realm of criminal activity and attract the laws of criminal justice. When discretion is not devolved then the centre has indicated that the local - level personnel are not trusted.

That is the basis of this difficulty that one is encountering. How can Islamabad act for and on behalf of the farmers in the Crop Maximisation Project or for that matter Naphis project that was meant to allow the WTO trade relationship to develop? The service orientation will never come into its own and needs to be shelved. It is waste of this kind that allows the West to dictate to us and to raise issues of corruption for we are not on the effort take; we are on the convenience aspects.

The rural areas in the future will hold the key to prosperity of Pakistan and it is this area that is under severe stress at the moment. Normal economics does not hold here. Western-style copycat economics does not work here. Instead what is required is that the new system has to be managed in a manner that is more relevant to the countryside. A paradigm shift is not what one is looking for, but a paradigm leap that is not linked to incremental increases but substantial one's.

In talking of equality one understands that equality can be contradictory to liberty and to efficiency as the blackguard cannot be given equality for the simple reason that ones laziness cannot be given the benefits of public benefit. There are many kinds of equality and one has to go to Tawny [the Fabian who wrote for the Labour Party and whose philosophy was finally adopted in 1945] to determine the real basis for equality to work.

The fact is that Islamabad does not know best what is required for the coastline of Pakistan or for that matter even the Pothwar region that is contiguous to the capital. This aspect is not understood by the policy makers. In any case, it does not mean that the bureaucracy is, in any way, responsible for determining issues based on its gray matter.

The bureaucracy has very little of it and the political system, coming out of the wild as it were, has even less. That they are now busy messing the decision-making process because they have never been initiated into the decision-making process. They are not at fault for they are the innocents of this world. Decisions are difficult and the exponential experience required is different. That is best exemplified by the difference between those that have to take immediate decisions and those that do not have to.

The surgeon-physician differences are best as an example. The surgeon has to take immediate decisions once he has opened up the patient, while the physician logs between maybes and never in the realm of shall. The physician lives to fight another day while the case of the surgeon is immediate. It's touch and go. The hesitation of the physician is matched with the surgeons taking of risks.

In cricket, this is best exemplified by the batsman, who is facing a 100-mile an hour delivery and, therefore, his decisions are split second. He lives and dies by one delivery and the fast bowler or any bowler can live for another day. That is why batting requires understanding of the playing conditions more and the bowler has to examine the conditions to exploit. One is in a defensive mode the other in an attacking mode. There has never been an analysis of the decision-making process in management.

In Pakistan, management issues are not there. What are available are administrative issues in which there is no aspect that has been considered for the kind of work that is being done. It is the straight jacket situation in which the section officer does the bidding of the next above and the next above that of the next above and this reverse dominoes game continues. Does this mean that Pakistan can get out of the logjam it has created for itself?

For mark my words, the same will never come about. How will that happen? The 'Kachra' that we have recruited in the government will never allow governance of any kind. They are the smelly lot that will always be taking actions that will not be in keeping either with decency or with situations that require taking the country forward and instead they are involved with the basic manner of siphoning of either by positive action or by negative aspects.

When the entire gamut is perverted and polluted what will the people's government do? The subject is so vast that if we start taking on substantial issues by the functions of the ministries, there will be no end to where we will end up. Governance requires a new way of thinking and using discretion to the best of abilities and above all making mistakes that have no intentional errors. Unintentional errors are a part of the forte of humans. That flows from the concept of discretion to which I just alluded. In the federal government, the feeling is that discretion is dangerous and that the centre knows best. Nothing could be more fallacious.

The paradox that is important to understand is that these issues have to be resolved and balanced not buried. Burial only ensures that the ugly face will come up again. The reason of man must prevail for if it does not and only ugly, rapacious and mean actions are to follow say goodbye to the country. I was there when it happened in East Pakistan. Do not let sinecure jobs and sinecure people do that to the country any more. Neither do you allow born-again-patriots to come to this country to tell us what to do for they were and are looking for things that border on the idiotic and that only indicate that they have acquired the attitudes and values that do not go well with this country.

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