Provincial economic surveys continue to be a distant dream despite some realisation of the need in relevant circles. Punjab has been computing the Gross State Product for over a decade but the centre has barred it from making the results public till the Council of Common Interests clears it.

Informally Dawn learnt that Punjab’s GSP (Gross State Product) was estimated to be one-fourth of the national GDP of around $300 billion. Similar projections for the other three provinces were not available.

Experts expect provincial surveys to surface earliest by 2019 if the provincial planning departments push hard and succeed in selling the idea to development partners for securing the required resources. They saw a slim chance of any significant allocations for the purpose in the budget as demand on resources would be high for schemes that promise immediate results to lure voters.

There was also a suspicion amongst power yielders that an honest account of provincial affairs could reignite inter-provincial tensions. “The 18th Amendment that devolved power and the 7th NFC that guided the resource sharing achieved something highly valuable: a useful inter-provincial working relationship. Anything that could upset the current balance was deemed regressive”, commented a senior official in Islamabad.

“It’s going to be business as usual for the next year and a half. Elections are too close now. Resources will be diverted for image building, glorifying the work done by the ruling parties in their respective provinces. No one is thinking long term. For them it is a question of survival”, commented a senior source in the federal planning ministry.

Deliberating on reasons for the delay in provincial economic surveys, provinces blamed the centre. People associated with the statistics departments were found whining in all provinces for the lack of power and resources

Deliberating on reasons for the delay, provinces blamed the centre beside capability constraints at sub-national levels. People associated with the statistics departments were found whining in all provinces for the lack of power and resources.

The hierarchy in Punjab Statistical Bureau was pointedly critical of the federal government that they thought politicised the issue of reporting on the provincial economy and desired the advanced provinces to wait till lagging ones caught up.

“Rulers did not want the regional disparities to be highlighted in an already fragmented polity. The issue is that the reality does not disappear by not talking about it. For things to change they need to be reported honestly first. Why assume rulers are keen for change?” an economist said.

Sindh bureaucracy, rendered impotent by the multiplicity of power centres, clung to the beaten argument of inappropriate intervention by the centre for underperformance. More forthcoming among provincial hierarchy blame it on the mindset in the province.

“The biggest challenge is to instil confidence in the team, break out of the fire fighting mode and celebrate the work done”, Dr Naeem uz Zafar Sindh Chief Economist who recently assumed the coveted charge told Dawn while discussing the provincial economy.

Nasim ul Ghani Sahito, DG Sindh Bureau of Statistics, did not sound happy. He informed that the provincial economic survey and wealth assessment has been on the agenda for the past few years but the lack of focus and resource allocation for the exercise were primarily responsible for the lack of progress. He admitted that there were capacity issues in his organisation.

“To move in the desired direction a unit was created in Sindh some time back and an expert was hired to lead the team. Unfortunately citing personal reasons the expert quit and we are back to square one”. He informed that the department was advertising again to attract expertise from the market but the response so far has been lukewarm.

Some other officials told Dawn how request for access by Sindh for HIES (Household Integrated Economic Survey) province specific data was declined. “Punjab has extrapolated on the data set of the World Bank to come up with an estimation of GSP. We thought HIES will provide a good starting point but the FBS was too possessive”, commented an officer.

Chief Economist Punjab, Dr Amanullah was confident that his department was in a position to produce the provincial economic survey if it gets the financial support it needs to conduct the gigantic exercise.

Chief Statistician Asif Bajwa dismissed the provincial blame as baseless. “We put up all our reports on the PBS (Pakistan Bureau of Statistics) website. The organisation is not stingy about data we generate. It is meant for dissemination”, he said over telephone from Islamabad.

“It’s their call. We have nothing to do with what falls in their domain”, he said commenting on sub-national economic surveys. On the accusation that they declined Sindh’s request for micro data he said, “I did not see anything in this regard. I am not familiar with any such correspondence. We even put up micro data of PLSM on the net”, he said.

According to background research the World Bank and GIZ, (a German economic cooperation body) pledged support for data collection in Punjab and KP in 2015. No one was willing to come on record on reasons for choosing the two but probably donors found their administrations more eager. The pace of progress, however, was not up to mark and the project was dropped last year when GIZ decided to pull out.

“It is hard enough to convince the politicians to invest in data generation but dealing with Pakistan Bureau of Statistics is frustrating. They view any advances by the provincial set up in this regard as infringement on their domain”, a member of Punjab economic team told Dawn contesting FBS head’s position.

“We have tried but PBS refused to share anything beyond what they put up on their site. We wanted access to raw data generated in Punjab for HIES but they declined to cooperate”, he added.

“The outcome of devolution of power and fiscal decentralisation did not meet expectations. The exponential improvement in the quality of governance and the life of the people did not materialise. For an informed comment annual detailed assessment of provincial economy is absolutely essential”, an expert made a case.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, November 6th, 2017

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