Well do you really want to go there? Do you want to compare his performance to ganja ji and bibi ji who had bankrupted Pakistan before him.
Now we all know he had made mistakes which he himself has admitted( no other politician ever had the guts to admit mistakes). NRO was his biggest. Buy by far he was the best person available for the job. It is so easy to criticize someone, but when it all comes to your head, then the person realizes what a mess it is and how to get out of it.
50 reasons Pakistan needs Musharraf
By
Syed Ali Raza Abidi Published: October 9, 2010
1. Nine world class engineering universities were developed and 18 public universities further developed.
2. Pakistan was ranked third in world banking profitability.
3. The IT industry was valued at around $2 billion, including $1 billion in exports and employed around
90,000 professionals.
4. The CNG sector attracted over $70 billion in investment in the past five years and created
45,000 jobs.
5. The telecommunications sector attracted around $10 billion in investments and created over
1.3 million jobs.
6. Industrial parks were set up throughout the country for the first time.
7. Mega projects such as the Saindak, Rekodiq, marble production, coal production, mining and quarrying were pursued.
8. Foreign reserves increased from
$700 million to $17 billion.
9. The Karachi stock market went from
700 points to 15,000 points.
10. The literacy rate improved by
11 per cent.
11. Poverty decreased by
10 per cent.
12. Four dams were built
: Mirani, Subakzai, Gomalzam, Khurram, and Tangi,
13. Seven motorways were completed or were under construction,
14.
Gwadar, an advanced sea port, was developed,
15. 650 kilometres of coastal highways were constructed.
16. A historic
100% increase in tax collection (amounting to Rs1 trillion) was observed.
17. Large scale manufacturing was at a 30-year high, and construction at a 17-year high.
18. Copper and gold deposits were found in Chagai, worth about $600 million annually if sold.
19. A new oil refinery with the UAE that could process 300,000 oil barrels a day was established.
20. The industrial sector registered 26 per cent growth.
21. The economy was the
third fastest growing economy after China and India .
22. The Institute of Space Technology was established.
23. Sardar Bahadur Khan Women University Quetta was established.
24. The University of Science and Technology, Bannu, was established.
25. The University of Hazara was founded.
26. The Malakand University in Chakdara was established.
27. The University of Gujrat was established
28. The Virtual University of Pakistan was established
29. Sarhad University of IT in Peshawar was established
30. The National Law University in Islamabad was established
31. The Media University in Islamabad was established
32. University of Education in Lahore was established
33. Lasbela University of Marine Sciences, Baluchistan, was established
34. Baluchistan University of IT & Management, Quetta (2002)
35. The Pakistan economy was worth $ 160 billion in 2007
36. GDP Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) was $ 475.5 billion in 2007
37. The
GDP per Capita in 2007 was $ 1000
38. Revenue collection in 2007/08 was Rs1.002 billion
39. Exports in 2007were worth $18.5 billion
40. Textile exports in 2007 were worth $11.2 billion
41. Foreign direct investment in 2007 was $8.5 billion
42. Debt servicing in 2007 was 26 per cent of the GDP
43. The poverty level in 2007 was 24 per cent
44. The literacy rate in 2007 was 53 per cent
45. Pakistan development programs in 2007 were valued at Rs520 billion
46. The Karachi stock exchange in 2007 was $70 billion at 15,000 points
47. Exports in 2007: $18.5 billion
48. Pakistan now has a total of 245,682 educational institutions in all categories, including 164,579 in the public sector and 81,103 in the private sector, according to the National Education Census (NEC-2005).
49. There are now more than
5,000 Pakistanis doing PhDs in foreign countries on scholarship.
300 Pakistanis receive PhD degrees every year,
in 1999, the number was just 20.
50. In total, 99,319 educational institutions increased in Musharraf’s era!
This was some of the good Musharraf delivered to Pakistan during his martially-democratic rule from 1999 to 2008.
Strange how quickly we forget his foreign policy efforts, which helped elevate the image of Pakistan globally added acceptance value to our green passports. Even the Indians next door were ready to discuss Kashmir for a solution and praised the man for his sincerity, honesty and amicable handling of the issues.
Of course, he has the right to tell his opponents,
“tameez say baat karo, warna munh toor jawab millayga” and it is true that most of them are keeping quiet since he said this in a recent interview with Express TV.
I feel he knows more than what he has already said so far, and may explode if not “handled with caution”. This goes for all the politicians cum armed forces of Pakistan. Hence, be careful everyone,
the General is coming back as a civilian!
Source: The Express Tribune
The Role of Politics in Pakistan's Economy
Columbia University-USA
Ishrat Husain
Vol. 63, No. 1, Fall/Winter 2009
In October 1999, the incoming military government was faced with four main challenges:
heavy external and domestic indebtedness; high fiscal deficit and
low revenue generation capacity;
rising poverty and unemployment; and a
weak balance of payments with stagnant exports.
The country faced a serious external liquidity problem as its reserves were
barely sufficient to buy three weeks of imports and could not possibly service its short-term debt obligations. Workers’ remittances
decreased by $500 million,
foreign investment flows dwindled by $600 million, official transfers turned negative and Pakistan had no access to private capital markets. In the domestic sector, the declining tax-to-GDP ratio and inflexible expenditure structure, whereby 80 percent of revenues were preempted to debt servicing and defense, constrained the government’s ability to increase the level of public investment.
Structural policy reforms combined with an improvement in economic governance laid the foundations
for accelerated growth from 2002 to 2007.22 The economic growth rate
averaged 7 percent, up from 3.1 percent in 2001 to 2002.
Poverty was reduced by between 5 and 10 percentage points, depending upon the methodology used. The
unemployment rate also
fell from
8.4 percent to 6.5 percent and approximately
11.8 million new jobs were created between 1999 and 2008. Gross and net enrollment ratios at the primary school level recorded upward movement. The re-profiling of the stock of debt brought down the
debt-to-GDP ratio from 100 percent to 55 percent. Foreign exchange reserves increased to cover six months’ imports from a few weeks’ imports. The fiscal deficit remained below or slightly above 4 percent of GDP. The
investment rate grew to 23 percent of GDP and an estimated $14 billion of foreign private capital inflows financed many sectors of the economy.
The exchange rate remained fairly stable throughout the period.
The experience I gained as an economic policymaker between 1999 and 2005 has fortified my belief in the validity of this proposition. Many far-reaching structural reforms were successfully carried out during this period, particularly in the initial three years. This was a period of relative political stability steered by technocrats, away from the civilians and the military.
Source: © Copyright
2013, Journal of International Affairs. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Review of Musharraf's Era on 12th Anniversary of 1999 Coup
Musharraf's policies helped create 13 million new jobs,
cut poverty in half and halved the
country's total debt burden in the period from 2000 to 2007.
Musharraf Government's Accomplishments:
Thanks to the
dynamic economy under President Musharraf's rule, Pakistan created more jobs, graduated more people from schools and colleges, built a larger middle class and lifted more people out of poverty as percentage of its population than India in the last decade. And Pakistan has done so in spite of the huge challenges posed by the war in Afghanistan and a very violent insurgency at home.
The above summary is based on volumes of recently released reports and data on
job creation,
education,
middle class size,
public hygiene,
poverty and hunger over the last decade that offer new surprising insights into the lives of ordinary people in two South Asian countries. It adds to my previous post on this blog titled
"India and Pakistan Contrasted in 2010".
The current PPP government summed up General Musharraf's accomplishments well when it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Monetary Fund which said:
"Pakistan's economy witnessed a major economic transformation in the last decade. The country's real GDP increased from $60 billion to $170 billion, with per capita income rising from under $500 to over $1000 during 2000-07". It further acknowledged that "the volume of international trade increased from $20 billion to nearly $60 billion. The improved macroeconomic performance enabled Pakistan to re-enter the international capital markets in the mid-2000s. Large capital inflows financed the current account deficit and contributed to an increase in gross official reserves to $14.3 billion at end-June 2007. Buoyant output growth, low inflation, and the government's social policies contributed to a reduction in poverty and improvement in many social indicators". (see
MEFP, November 20, 2008, Para 1)
Pre-Musharraf Decade:
Before the coup, Pakistan was approaching the end of what is now remembered as The Lost Decade of the 1990s when PPP's Benazir Bhutto and PML's Nawaz Sharif played musical chairs, while the economy stagnated and the people suffered.
Summing up the economic situation after the PPP-PML coalition took office in 2008, the Economist magazine in its June 12 issue summed it up as follows: "Before Mr Sharif was ousted in 1999, the two parties had presided over a decade of corruption and mismanagement. But since then, as the IMF remarked in a report in January, there has been a transformation. Pakistan attracted over $5 billion in foreign direct investment in the 2006-07 fiscal year, ten times the figure of 2000-01. The government's debt fell from 68% of GDP in 2003-04 to less than 55% in 2006-07, and its foreign-exchange reserves reached $16.4 billion as recently as in October." Please read
"Pakistani Economy Returning to the Bad Old Days".
Criticisms of Musharraf Government:
Among the various criticisms of Musharraf's rule, there are two that particularly stand out:
1. Musharraf's Support For US War on Terror:
Musharraf has been heavily criticized for siding with the United States and angering the Taliban and their sympathizers who have been attacking and terrorizing Pakistani state and its people. As mightily as Pakistan has suffered at the hands of the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates since 911, I do believe that Pakistanis would have been much worse off if Musharraf had not sided with the United States when asked after the worst terror attacks on US mainland. The
consequences of refusal to help the US would have ranged from direct and massive NATO attack (probably with Indian help) on Pakistan to crippling sanctions and complete political and diplomatic isolation on the world stage.
2. Musharraf's Failure to Increase Energy Supply:
There was double digit annual growth in industrial production in Pakistan from 2000-2007, and the rising incomes and standards of living put pressure on energy supplies, particularly electricity. However, the situation was being managed to assure only short interruptions in supply to maintain and ration insufficient power generation capacity. For example, in June 2007, the power cuts in Pakistan lasted no more than 3 or 4 hours a day. Today, the situation is far worse with 10-12 hrs or more of load shedding every day, in spite of an stagnant economy.
It is becoming increasingly clear that it is the total absence of financial management, not just insufficient installed generating capacity, that is the crux of the
worsening energy problems in Pakistan.
Riots have broken out as the Punjab, Pakistan's largest province, finds itself in the midst of the worst ever electricity crisis in the nation's history. The power shortfall has reached almost 9000 megawatts across the country, over half of the total demand of about 17000 MW.
Many public and private power producers have shut down their power plants due to the suspension of fuel supply by Pakistan State Oil, the state-owned oil company, according to a report in the Express Tribune. The oil company is demanding payment of Rs. 155 billion in outstanding dues from the power producers before resuming fuel supply.
Summary:
Musharraf era was the best era in terms of improving the lives of the ordinary folks in Pakistan since the Ayub-era in the 1960s. Strong economy helped create millions of new jobs and lifted millions out of poverty. Social indicators improved significantly and the the size of the middle class grew dramatically. So why is it that there are so many people who continue to condemn Musharraf?
I think Musharraf's critics can be divided in two categories:
1. Self-serving politicians and their supporters under their patronage who deny Musharraf's accomplishments because any admission of reality would be seen as a confession of their own incompetence.
2. Those who acknowledge Musharraf's economic legacy but would still prefer elected civilian government for ideological reasons. They are perfectly willing to sacrifice economic growth in the hope of hastening a better democratic future for Pakistan.
Source:
South Asia Investor Review
