ON many issues the Pakistani business and industrialist class stands united. It is in a chorus that businessmen and industrialists often demand more incentives. Most of them do not particularly enjoy the reputation of being good paymasters and it would be difficult to find anyone from this class who pays taxes without shedding tears.
But philanthropy seems to be a different matter. Beginning with some small sums, the corporate sector opened its coffers to donate large sums to relief funds set up in the wake of the Oct 8 catastrophe.
The Cabinet Committee on Fund Raising has reportedly collected Rs6.6 billion from 221 business groups, and the money is still flowing in. The unspeakable grief of the poor has shaken the hearts of the rich. When one company announces a donation, others, especially the rivals, must follow suit. And it is good to see, at least for once, that corporate companies are not competing with each other to earn greater profits, but are in a healthy competition to dole out more.
Business people have even taken the time and trouble to travel to Islamabad in order to personally present donations to the president or prime minister’s secretariat. And more energetic and enthusiastic of them — who on other occasions would just step out of their air-conditioned cars and get into their air-conditioned bungalows — have even dared to take the difficult journey up north for supervising the delivery of relief goods.
Despite all such efforts, the business and industrial class must have its share of criticism; like any other section of the populace, it acts more on impulse than on planning. Just to recount, there was no collective response from the private sector in the first week after the earthquake, in spite of the fact that the apex private sector business forum, the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, is currently headed by an individual who hails from Kashmir. A businessman on the FPCCI managing committee was indignant: “It took the Federation one week to call a meeting of the managing committee when every hour was crucial,” he said. “And who could have realized the importance of time, more than the FPCCI president who himself comes from Mirpur in Azad Kashmir,” he added.
But another businessman aggressively differed: “Well, how quickly can you plan to overcome a natural calamity?”He reminded that initially all eyes were focused on the Margalla Towers and no one even knew about the scale of calamity in the north. “Don’t forget that even after several hours of the terrible tremors on Oct 8, Major Gen Shaukat Sultan, the ISPR chief , who should be the first to have known it all, put the casualty figure at only 1,000 during a TV interview,” he said.
But the issue at hand is inescapable. It is the attitude of this supposedly modern, futuristic, driving class of the economy that faces a lot of questions. The way the business community behaves lends credence to the opinion that they are more entrenched deeply in the past than they are hooked to the future. The past is represented by a feudalistic mindset, whereas the futuristic approach demands a scientific outlook on life. The latter recognizes the power of the institution rather than that of an individual, no matter how rich or powerful.
Perhaps it is asking for too much too soon of the business community to fashion relief efforts collectively that would not separate the contribution made by one group from the other to the President’s Relief Fund. Without being judgmental, it has not been difficult to notice how some businessmen and industrialists took pains to get noticed while presenting their cheques.
To be fair, it could be that individuals and firms rushed to chip in whatever they could as time was running out. Getting together and discussing options in a diverse company may have led to genuine concerns of disagreements, arguments and delays.
However, the fact that in times of distress, Corporate Pakistan tends to turn to their community and clan rather than their class organization, is quite evident. As one observer put it, “Haven’t we noticed that in most matters, businessmen instead of grouping themselves into one class opt more to patch up in smaller classes on linguistic or ethnic grounds, such as the Memons and the Chiniotis and the Sindhis and the Ismailis, and so on?”
The catastrophe is by no means over. As a matter of fact, the real problems have just begun. The magnitude of devastation still has to be translated into monetary losses. The government has figured out that it would require over five billion dollars for rehabilitation and reconstruction. The task ahead is monumental.
But five billion dollars could be a guesstimate. Government teams, working on financial aspects, should delve deeper into the issue and work out the economics of reconstruction. The private sector which claims that it can handle all kinds of businesses, asserting that the government should not do business, must also be doing some homework in this regard. Shouldn’t it live up to its claims by being more active in assessing independently the damages and devising a reconstruction plan that is scientific, practical and cost-effective?
An economist who works closely with the private sector was less charitable in his views about the group: “They like to wait for the cake to get baked and then they put on the act of the birthday boy who claims the cake to be his and is not ready to share it.”
Chaudhry Mohammad Saeed, the FPCCI President, was well-informed about the issue, but was critical of the government’s economic policies with respect to AJK. Talking to Dawn Magazine over telephone from Mirpur, he said the process of reconstruction would be long drawn out and there was not much that the private sector could do in AJK in the absence of necessary basic infrastructure. “It would primarily be commercial interests that may attract private investment in Kashmir,” he said. “The area has long been neglected and was administered by bloated self-serving AJK Council that did little to create conducive environment for private investment,” he added.
According to Chaudhry Saeed, the region has no industrial base. He said that the government should start rebuilding the region as quickly as possible since resources had already been generated for the cause. “The government has already collected about a billion dollars, enough for the first two years of the projected reconstruction period of 10 years,” he said. The FPCCI chairman said that more funds could be channelized from overseas Kashmiris who have traditionally been supportive. He suggested that the government should announce the establishment of a well-equipped industrial zone in AJK, providing attractive incentives to private businesses to attract investors.
But suggestions do not impress everyone. “Yes, you will come across some very sound suggestions, but the Federation has yet to create a research and development mechanism to interpret interests of the business class in a particular situation,” said a worried businessman.
But why nobody had thought of doing this before? “Well, we are already making more money than our expectations, so why worry?” The fact is that the way this class has been pampered, it never felt the need to organize itself for anything other than profits. “In our culture and government setup, it is always easier to get things sorted out individually than to take the arduous route of some collective platform,” reasoned another senior businessman.
“We are minions as compared to successful businessmen in the region. Maybe it is the humble background that is not letting the business class understand its potential,” said another business leader. “The financial strength is there, but the intellectual input is lacking,” he added.
But what has not been done so far, can be done now. The post-earthquake scenario and the economic challenges that it poses can be a good starting point for the FPCCI to put its act together and create a ‘research cell’. Such a cell is indispensable for providing feedback to the business class to enable it to match its performance with the claims of being the leading force in the economy.
