DR ZAFAR ALTAF
ARTICLE (July 04 2009): The Ayub era has been held to be the best era for the development of the country. That may have been so because Ayub used senior civil servants for the purpose and they were competent persons capable of standing alone. Delivering the goods in the name of Pakistan and Pakistan alone. The impact of the industrial policy was dependent on how the American 's thought organised industry in the country.
The Americans were all over. They were in the Planning Commission [PC], in Pakistan Institute of Development Economics [PIDE] and the Chief Economist of the Planning Commission was none other than the flamboyant Dr Mehbub-ul-Haq. They gave birth to the 22 families due to their policy of robber barons.
Those early entrants were given all kinds of incentives and I remember interviewing the owner of one of the spinning mills who said that for a spinning mill of 12500 spindles the net profit was Rs 1 per spindle per day. The statistician on the basis of real value would not be able to gauge the real value of that amount but it was colossal. Imagine what could have been done with that kind of resources at one's disposal. But what did happen?
What the Americans did not understand was that there would be flight of capital from the country and that amount would never be reinvested in the economic industrial field. The desire to siphon off money is not over yet.
Consider all the houses that have been pampered by the financial world right from the start and you will see no saint in there. The machinery was purchased at an over invoiced rate, the IDBP and PICIC lived on commissions and the entire world was deprived and depraved as subsequent event indicated. The world was at a standstill for everything else. There was massive transfer of resources from the agriculture sector to the industrial sector.
The justification, like all scoundrels, was taken from the economics relevant to other countries. IDBP, PICIC and the rest of them made hay and since they had credit lines from the donors they did as they pleased.
All others were given step motherly treatment. Wheat prices never increased for the support price of Rs 18 per kg for the decade that he was in power. I saw and I wondered what we would be doing. Dams came up and of course the media played its role and they praised and they played truant with the country merely for the sake of their petty benefits.
During those days Lewis was current and then came Rostow and his take off stage. All of us believed in the economic theories of those times. Lewis brought out the concept of labour-intensive industries. The West was keen on selling their second hand machinery and keeping us in our place and at the same time playing godfather to us. We did all that and much more.
When the criticism came the Chief Economist of the time responsible for this was the first to turn against this policy and let loose a flurry of attacks on the government. The Indian rope trick was done and he vanished into the wonderful world of payment in dollars. The former East Pakistan debacle was even more ridiculous for without understanding the social concept of parity, a principle that had evolved over time for the purpose of equity in the family.
If one child had one trouser or pajama others would have the same. They started using this principle in the industrial world with the result that the other wing started having textile factories and sugar factories when there was no raw material.
The textile mills never worked and the sugar mills had a crushing period of 15 days. No purpose was served. The trade from West to East followed the principle of the East India Company and was based on siphoning all the resources that they could. It was despicable.
The matter continued in that vein and the Chief Executive of the country [President or PM] kept on using these paper sanctions to their ends and kept on obliging friends and political supporters. In a study carried out by the author the evidence that came up was that textile sanctions were utilised for the purpose of political graft.
Much happened during that tenure that set the pace for what is happening now. A ten-mile border belt was created and a revenue cell developed in the military offices. The ten-mile border belt was utilised for allotment of lands to the army personnel.
The border ended where Punjab's fertile land was at an end for this land was never given to civilians. There was no embargo on sale so that the army person merely sold to the civilian and made off with substantial amounts of rents. The doling of civilian property in the name of assumed sacrifices meant that the dead were living and were made owners of lands that belonged to the poor. It was cheap and it is till cheap. I wonder at the conscience of the newly landed class.
Maybe they have had some rationalisations but do not want to share it with us, the civilians. The social impact was disastrous. The ordinary person saw and realised that the best way to get some resources would be to some how join these players of great manipulative nature. No harm in learning.
The other impact was that the steel mill that were supposed to come in from Germany and required urgently was not allowed to come in because of the wrath of the media and the people. That was based on the Kalabagh ore and would have benefited the country much more than what was done.
The East Pakistan scenario was even more interesting for we had the population in West Pakistan not understanding the situation but by passing economics. The managers form the west vanished to other countries. East Pakistan did another serious adventure that eventually led to the separation of East Pakistan and West Pakistan.
A bit of history is always necessary for the individual. The governor there was tyrant, as one never had seen before. He was into all kinds of things mostly atrocious. The fate he met is not to be described. It was so fearful. The current impasse is because of this.
The industrial concentration is such that the mafia and monopolists have taken over the country. I can take you through the entire history of the industrial world and pinpoint how this was done. Can we break this impasse?
We can, provided there is some kind of normative actions, which allow the country to survive these crises. The world of Pakistan has to be corrected through induction of fresh blood. Where? It is agonising to see this happen and be a bystander.
The banks have written off credits and loans for the rich and not for the poor. The poor for a loan of Rs 5000 is herded off to jail while distress sale of his precious but few articles of daily life. Pakistan has to right the many wrongs that previous governments have done to this country.
It will take along haul but decency was never achieved easily. The fact is that the world of industry has just posted a declining trend in growth. What nonsense when they have been getting what they wanted. The private sector is not a private sector as it seeks and pleads to get responses for itself. Governments have been paying hefty subsidies to them. The question is why have mafias? The selfishness of man is proverbial. That's it Jeeves.
