This refers to Kazi Mohiuddin Farooqui’s letter published in EBR on August 18. I wasn’t lucky (like Mr Farooqui) in locating the articles by Dr Ishrat Hussain but based on the excerpts quoted in Mr A.B. Shahid’s article. Mr Farooqui’s views appear debatable.

Undoubtedly, containing public debt at a manageable level is vitally important but the condition is to invest in the infrastructure that supports the economic growth and resource generation to pay for debt. To withhold investment in the infrastructure, and hope for economic growth and increased tax revenues that could retire the public debt amounts to putting the cart before the horse.

Since 1950s, Pakistan’s economic mangers have been advising the nation that ‘slow and steady wins the race’ and keeping development expenditure well below the level dictated by population growth. Yet there are no signs of ‘winning’ the race.

For a country that was mismanaged for decades at a stretch, rise in public debt from 46pc of the GDP to 48pc would hardly make a difference provided the additional debt puts the economy on track. Expenditure on priorities listed in Mr Shahid’s article, which Mr Farooqui calls ‘unproductive projects’, will yield definite positive results.

It is time we made up for the yawning gap in Pakistan’s physical and social infrastructure even if overly debt-conscious economists find it politically expedient ‘headline catcher’. To withhold it on the pretext of inadequacy of implementation capacity in the ministries is a weak argument. The solution to that doesn’t lie in persisting with the under-development and blaming it on the inefficient bureaucrats who can’t deliver, it should be remedied by replacing them with a lot that can.

Succeeding in this effort requires close supervision and speeding up project work. It is a pity that we are not enraged at the slow progress on projects and the under-utlization of the development funds. If this goes on as before, what difference has the present government made? It is, perhaps, worse than earlier governments because it believes in duping the people into believing that the real indicators of the economic growth are foreign exchange reserves and the KSE-100 index — the federal finance minister’s favourite.

Azfar Ali Baqvi,

Karachi