04 October 2004	Monday	18 Shaban 1425

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz wants a new work ethic in Pakistan to increase economic growth rapidly. He wants the people to produce more of the value-added goods in all sectors , enhance the value of services and increase the national income overall steadily. That sure is a recipe for doing away with or reduce the pervasive poverty and human misery.

He sees the possibility of such radical improvements all round on the basis of his American experience and exposure and other countries who have done the same following the US model, like Canada and Japan.

Above all, such vastly improved work ethic has become imperative in the high competitive world to be brought about by the WTO regime from January and the end of the textile quota system after December and the survival of the fittest from then on.

He wants the new work ethic in government offices, in the factories and on the farms, and in the service sector all round without waste and the familiar slackness. But to give his optimum performance the worker has to be properly nourished and free from sickness and the varied infections of the East. If, in addition to that, he takes hours to reach the office from far off 'Kuchhi abadis' and hours more to return home after work he will be a totally drained worker.

With one person earning while too many depend on him he gets little to eat and is usually under-nourished and capable of a low work output. Former US defence secretary Robert McNamara said sometime ago the people of the developing countries suffered from gross protein starvation and that reduced their productive capacity.

In fact, the worker in the East is starved of not only protein but also nutritive elements that can make him a good worker and better producer. Economic growth and production levels in developing countries are low or lower than their optimum possible level as a small number of women work in the organised sector.

Women clamour for economic empowerment which begins with safe and productive employment opportunities. But in a country with massive unemployment and under-employment, while men are not able to get jobs on low wages, women get even fewer jobs. And opportunities for them to do business are also poor in country in which sexual attacks on women are common and Karo Kari is still the ruling creed in the feudal strongholds. Murderers of women g4t away with their ghastly crimes in the name of "honour" of the men as if women's life has no value at all.

Our workers have shown they are capable of far better work, quality output and vastly improved service when they work in the West in return for higher wages and better discipline.

They have shown they work better and for long hours in Arab states which permit no laxity. If they don't work well they can be sent home brusquely. In countries where they smuggle themselves into they work in sweat shops for long hours on low pay as they don't have the right travel papers. Or immigration documents.

In the Gulf states and the Middle Eastern countries they don't have the protection of trade unions and have to accept the employers' terms in full. The new work ethic which Mr Shaukat Aziz calls for needs education and technical training and a capacity to acquire new skills from time to time as the industry demands.

Then they can bargain with their employers at home or abroad as the employers value such productive workers. In Pakistan unions have been the strongest in the public sector and in multinational companies. And they have been the weakest in the private sector, particularly the textile mills where the abuses of the "group system" have been prevailing. In much of the textile sector the workers have to do what the group leader or gang leader demands, however unreasonable.

Otherwise not only the worker can be punished but also his family in the Punjab as the gang leader can be too ruthless. Yet another weakness of the industrial system in Pakistan is that many of them are not managed by professional managers but by the Seths or their children.

As long as they make enough profits they do not care to increase the efficiency level of the wakers or try to get far higher output. To get the best out of an industry the company needs professional managers from some of the best business or management schools in the country.

Some of the sons of the Seths have themselves become qualified as professional managers from such management training schools. When the companies are mismanaged and there is extensive corruption in them the worker cannot be efficient and the management may not be interested in a new work ethic.

Earlier it was hoped that the companies will be managed better and there will be less or no corruption if the workers were given or sold some number of shares and eventually enabled to be represented on the board. But that has far from been a success. The employers proved to be too manipulative and the wakers were easily duped.

For that matter selling even the whole company to the employees did not improve the situation. The worst example of that had been the Allied Bank whose first two chiefs were arrested for malpractice after its privatisation. The best example is the Engo Chemicals which has been a stunning success under the late Shaukat Mirza and thereafter.

What we need is a new work ethic from top to bottom, and not expecting that only at the level of the employees. High living chief executives or directors of companies roaring into their offices in sports cars cannot be a model of new work ethic.

When we expect a new work ethic from the workers or the staff, the pay should be enough to meet their basic needs and the needs of their families. And when the economy expands far more then one from a family will be able to get jobs. And finally the women will fill the vacuum or take over from some of the male workers.

On the farms, too, the women will become professional workers instead of just helping their families voluntarily, and will eventually become experts or technically trained workers.

What matters initially is the security of the women on the farms without a male escort to stand by in these days of insecurity for women when the "honour" of the man is all that matters, however distorted or contorted.

When it comes to work in government offices those in grades 21 and 22 are taken care off in respect of their expensive perquisites. Along with good salary. Those in grade 20 too manage by getting some of the perquisites like cars with petrol and driven one way or another. All those below them have to suffer and fend for themselves.

But the problem is numbers. With four million people in government employ it is not easy to increase their salaries perquisites or pensions. Too many in the government also mean too long a red tape and scope for plenty of corruption if the people want any work done in a government office.

So we need a smaller government to have a better government and good governance, and better to pay for them all. But while we talk of reducing the government at the bottom we are getting too large a cabinet at the top with varied unconvincing explanations. But now let us see the new ministerial work ethic which will be judged by the prime minister on the basis of the quarterly reports he receives from them.

While shaukat Aziz judges his ministers on the basis of their performance and co-ordination in their work, the people will judge the government from top to bottom as a whole.

While we talk of adequate nutrition for the new work ethic, the procurement price of wheat has been raised by Rs 50 for 40 kilograms for the 2005 crop and the total price made Rs 400.

That means those in the cities and the industrial workers have to pay far more for their food - a rise of Rs 100 for 40 kg in two years. When food price rise all other prices rise, and the road to inflation is wide open and nutrition level of the workers suffer.