November 26, 2002	Tuesday	Ramazan 20, 1423

KARACHI, Nov 25: Rising unemployment and growing poverty in the country are expected to be the dominating issues of the first cabinet meeting of the multi parties coalition government led by Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali.

No firm date for the meeting has been indicated, but business leaders claiming to be in touch with relevant people in Islamabad, expect the 21-member cabinet to meet sometimes in first week of December, immediately after the completion of process of formation of the provincial governments. “It may be even before Eid, a local businessman active in PML (Q) affairs indicated.

With more than 12 million men and women unemployed and almost 50 million people living below the poverty line in the country, the cabinet is expected to hear from Shaukat Aziz, the former finance minister and now adviser to the Prime Minister on finance, revenue and economic affairs, the long and short term strategy to combat this twin menace.

Cabinet colleagues may put Shaukat Aziz in the dock and embarrass him with questions on the military government’s claim of foreign exchange reserves buildup, the factors leading to increase in dollars inflow, growth of the economy, performance of industry and agriculture and the end result of much trumpeted tax survey and taxation reforms.

“There may be a proposal to give a hard look at the taxation structure to provide some relief,” a local businessman indicated.

Quite a few top leaders, including MMA secretary general Maulana Fazlur Rehman and leader of the Millat Party Farooq Leghari, in their speeches during the first session of the National Assembly made specific reference to growing poverty and rising unemployment.

The economic thinkers and planners in MMA and PML (N) blame the military government, for taking up with religious zeal for implementation, all the harsh conditionalities tied with 10 months Standby Facility and that it has also bound itself with equally hard conditions of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) accord with the International Monetary Fund. In this process, spread over three years, 8 million more persons are reported to have been pushed down below the poverty line in the last three years only. The industry is virtually crippled, market has shrunk, fields are barren and villages and cities present a picture of lawlessness, crumbling infrastructures and depleting health and education facilities.

Professor Khurshid of Jamat-i-Islami and Ahsan Iqbal Ahsan wants the government to have hard look at the IMF and the World Bank agenda of reforms, particularly the taxation structure which they consider quite crippling for the industry, anti-growth and anti-poor.

Yusuf Shirazi, a top business corporate leader, wants the present government to go for an immediate five-year suspension of “World Trade Organization’s operations in particular, and in general the World Bank and the IMF precepts alien to the local genius of growth strategy”.

“Unemployment of educated elite and revenues mismatch for public spending” are the two national issues highlighted by Shirazi in his felicitation letter addressed to new Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali. “These issues can be addressed only through an approach towards growth economy — investment — high tech value added investment, and dovetailing the international financial institutions’ (IFI’s) policies with local priorities.”

He blasted free trade slogan, which he pointed out was not being practised by the developing world itself. The IFI policies and free trade slogan, he asserted, have deprived the local investment of competitive advantage and have been acclaimed at the cost of political, economic and social sovereignty of the developing countries — Pakistan included.

Shirazi has drawn the government’s attention towards an average annual GDP growth of 4.9 per cent maintained in the country since 1951, which he attributes to “country’s abundance of resources, high quality human resources and dynamic entrepreneurship”.

Shirazi wants the coalition government to address the issues of unemployment of educated elite and revenues matching expected public spending among others to ensure “economic growth leading to our socio political sovereignty”.

Chowdhry Ahsan Iqbal, a former deputy chairman of the PML (N) government, blames the military government for putting the agriculture under pressure by accepting the condition of levying GST on fertilizer and pesticide. His immediate prescription is to give some relief to agriculture, review POL fortnightly pricing policy and utility tariffs.

Professor Khurshid said that his party had set up a cell to review the economic policies. He said that economic policies of the government would be scrutinized in the National Assembly and in Senate.