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TO get a better idea of how anaemic the economic conversation in the country is, try taking a look at the sort of questions that our MNAs raise about economic matters in the National Assembly. Here are some examples.
In the session on Friday, for instance, a question asked the finance minister to state “whether it is a fact that Pakistan has taken more than $6 billion from the International Monetary Fund; if so, the borrowing/lending arrangements made” thereof. This was followed up by a second part to the question asking if he could furnish details about the conditions agreed to as part of the arrangement, and whether “the government will assure parliament that Pakistan will not have another external payment crisis in future”.
Let’s start with the top. If you want to know how much Pakistan has borrowed from the IMF, all you have to do is go to the IMF website, look for a tab that says ‘countries’ at the top, click on it, scroll down to where Pakistan is listed, and click on that link. The page that opens up contains details of all money taken from and repaid, as well as future repayments due, and all facilities with dates entered into between Pakistan and the IMF.
You’ll also find a long (very long!) list of all documents connected with every facility going back to 1998 (you can write to them if you want earlier material), and every review done under the facility that has just ended, as well as the original letter of intent that spelled out all the conditions that Pakistan had committed to meeting as part of the programme.
In short, you do not need to use the enormously powerful privilege of questioning the government from the platform of the National Assembly to ask the finance minister to perform a simple Google search for you.
Where economic matters are concerned, questions asked by MNAs reveal their poor understanding.
Take another example from the same day. Another MNA asked the finance minister “to state the resources distribution mechanism/formula among provinces under the current National Finance Commission Award along with the details thereof”.
Once again, the answer to the question is available on the internet. All the questioner had to do was go to the finance ministry website, click on the link that says ‘federal budget documents’, and click on the link that says ‘budget in brief’.
This little booklet is released every year, and if you look in chapter four, you’ll find a seven-page long summary of the NFC Award, with a copy of the president’s order reproduced verbatim.
In short, since the information is released every year, and placed on a government website, is there really any sense in using parliament’s privilege to question the government to ask the finance minister to reproduce the contents of this link in response to a question?
The next example led me to laugh out loud. One questioner asked the finance minister to state “the total number of officers working as the chief editor, chief interpreter, chief reporter and chief translator in various departments of the ministry at present along with the names and designations thereof”. In the second part, the concerned questioner asked about plans to upgrade these offices and when these plans will be implemented.
The response deserves to be reproduced in full: “There is no post of chief editor, chief interpreter, chief reporter and chief translator at the sanctioned 13 strength of this division. Moreover, there is no attached department etc under the administrative control of this division. Therefore, the requisite information in respect of Economic Affairs Division may be treated as NIL.”
What on earth was up with that question?
Here’s another example. “Will the minister for finance, revenue, economic affairs, statistics and privatisation be pleased to state the total number of state-owned entities included in the current privatisation plan by the government along with the deadline for the privatisation of the said entities separately?”
Here’s my response: “Dear Madam MNA, the information you seek has been hanging on the website of the privatisation commission for many years now. Please locate the tab at the top that says ‘transactions’, and hover your cursor over it.”
Here is what the finance minister stated in his response to this question. “Since October 2013, the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCOP) approved a list of 69 State Owned Entities (SOEs) for inclusion in the Privatisation Program. Of these 69, 40 were approved by the CCOP for ‘Early Implementation’.”
This text is exactly cut and pasted from the website of the commission, so I’ll spare everyone the tedium of having to read it again by reproducing it here.
Why are people asking questions the answers to which are available on government websites? What do they plan to do with this information if they can’t even figure out how to find it on their own? Another MNA asked the finance minister to state “the current volume of public debt of the country at present,” with follow ups about the reasons for borrowing and what “repayment plans” exist.
Only problem with the question is that the answer is there on the State Bank website. Go to the tab titled ‘economic data’ at the top, click on it, scroll down to the section titled “Pakistan’s debt profile” and check out the wealth of monthly, quarterly and archived data available in Excel format.
The power given to MNAs to ask questions of the government and expected written responses is a powerful and important tool of policy accountability.
Occasionally some MNAs use it effectively. But where economic matters are concerned, the questions only reveal the enormous lack of understanding about basic economic matters on the part of those whose job is to give oversight to government policy. No wonder our economic track record consists of going round and round in circles, repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
The writer is a member of staff.
Twitter: @khurramhusain
Published in Dawn February 9th, 2017
