JUNE IS THE month when the ritual of budget presentation takes place whether it is before the parliament or in its absence, before the press. In both cases, it is a document, which has bureaucratic imprint all over it.

Gone are the days when people thronged before radios and TV sets and listened to every word of the finance minister for relief in taxes and duties. Of the 140 million people living in this country, barely a million have some interest, if at all. It is the salaried people, pensioners, traders, importers and exporters that have some interest left in the exercise. Well, the IMF is another matter which watches over the shoulder of the finance minister to ensure that the compliance if full.

The rhapsodic reception of budget is a thing of the past. Interest remains confined to less than 1 per cent population, which includes the government servants, industrialists and formal traders. Poverty and wealth co-exists side by side with the gulf ever widening. The consequences are a breakdown of the social fabric, which manifest themselves in lawlessness and religious militancy. The first and foremost requirement for development is peaceful law and order followed by empowerment through education, access to health including water and sanitation.

The minuscule minority that shows some interest in the annual feature of the budget possesses all the money for queuing up to buy a car, but that does not reflect the reality on the ground, as for the disenfranchised majority of 139m. People are living in a stark poverty and unemployment is wide spread. The greatest potential for generating employment is in agriculture where land ownership continues to prevent full exploitation of the opportunity. Land reforms are a joke.

Whether it is parliament or bureaucrats, the people are not involved directly or indirectly in the making of the budget. People of this country are disenfranchised not only politically but also socially and economically. They have no say in the affairs of the state and have to do with the crumbs thrown their way by the ruling classes of one million people. When we have an elected parliament, the legislators are barred from discussing the largest chunk of revenue expenditure, expressed in a single line allocation; and as for the remaining parts of the budget, they either have no time or the stamina of going through the voluminous budgetary documents necessary for its passage because they vote on party lines.

Once the budget has been approved by the mandarins of the finance division in consultation with their masters, the process of amendments starts may be the very next day. Its sanctity is compromised. It is not unusual for an item of expenditure favoured by the rulers to exceed 100% of the budgeted figure.

Budget represents allocation for various sectors of the economy and reflects the preferences of the government in power. With substantial chunk of it preempted by defence and debt servicing - the latter mercifully postponed to later years - there is not much left any way. In case there is a parliament, any budgetary deviation is approved with the approval of the prime minister and therefore whatever sanctity ought to have attached to the exercise is seriously undermined. As a matter of principle and for enforcing strict budgetary discipline, no deviation should be allowed except with the prior approval of parliament.

Budget is no more an occasion to await its arrival with a bated breath because there are no surprises and the finance division in consultation with the IMF has already determined the priorities, which virtually is micromanaging the economy. It wishes to ensure that subsidies are reduced, taxes particularly the GST is extended as far as possible; import duties are brought down and so on. After all we have to integrate with the global framework.

Budget 2002-03 has estimated an expenditure of Rs768.78b (p2 of the Annual Budget Statement) and Rs742b. total outlay (Federal Budget In Brief). The difference is not understandable. Rs290billion go for debt servicing, 146 billion for defence and the left over for the four provinces, the government of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the development etc. Provinces all always shortchanged on the ground that collection has not matched the estimates.

Not only that, even income has been overestimated. Against budget estimates of Rs644b for the last year, collection was only Rs535b-a 16.9 per cent shortfall. Privatization was expected to yield Rs8 billion. but brought nothing at all. Assuming similar slippages, a shortfall of Rs101 is expected this year. Higher and optimistic targets do not produce better results. Not only that, reliance has been placed on external resources for Rs198 billion to meet domestic deficit. How long are we going to live beyond our means? Foreign interest in our well-being may wane and fortuitous rescue package may not be offered. What do we do then? Simple answer is that we should cut our expenditure by Rs299 billion. Resources for education have to be generated not by hoping to increase revenues but only by diverting expenditure from other non productive sectors.

To quote Mr.Irfan Husain: ‘So here we are now, with over five decades, two and a half wars, thousands of lives and billions of dollars squandered on a policy that has clearly failed.’ Not much has happened during the last 55 years of our existence as the poverty has increased instead of declining. Education is the first thing that should come to mind in this regard.

To quote the finance minister: “ the government is making extraordinary efforts to boost the quality of education’. And what does it get? A measly 1.36 per cent of the total outlay. Economic Survey (2000-01) and the subsequent one have not stopped paying lip service to education. In the former, the chapter begins at page-145 and in the later at page-149. The first sentence in the former reads: “ education is the corner stone of broad based economic growth and poverty reduction”. In the latter it says: “the importance of education for human resource development does not need elucidation”; and yet the literacy percentage has increased marginally in 2002 to 50.5 per cent. According to the World Bank illiteracy is as high as 42.5 per cent among males and 72.1 per cent among females. Most of the increase in the development budget involves putting in brick and mortar. There is a large number of empty schools in Balochistan and Sindh, which are a dead investment. Such expenditure inflates the budgetary figures, but as a matter of fact is a total waste. What is necessary is up gradation of educational skills of the teachers and the quality of education for the students. Entire educational budget must focus on improving the governance as well as the quality of educational system.

The Economic Survey says as much: “ no nation can take advance of trade and development opportunities without making major advancing in education. Without rapid and substantial improvement in access to and quality of education broader poverty reduction efforts will be blunted.’ And yet in spite of full-throated rhetoric the performance lags far behind. The combined total of Rs.10.5b allocation this year both for development and current expenditure constitutes 1.36 per cent of the total outlay, and 0.3 per cent of the GDP. Besides the allocation is no guarantee that the amount will be actually spent. Against the revised budget of Rs.11b last year, only 6.8 billion were spent. According to Dr. Mehboob-ul-Haq “ it is not the unequal income but the unequal distribution of opportunity - unequal excess to the education, credit, public utilities and other services that is a root cause of the poverty”.

To quote Amartya Sen in ‘India Economic Development and Social Opportunity’, “importance has to be attached to the distinct influences that promote or constraint the freedoms that individuals have, including their ability to make use on economic opportunities”. He further goes on to say that, education and health can be important factors. Education and health can be seen to be valuable to the freedom of a person in at least five distinct ways. They are intrinsic importance, instrumental personal role, instrumental social roles, instrumental process roles and empowerment and distributive roles.

Pakistan may belong to the hall of shame being in the honourable company of Congo, Nigeria, Bangladesh and India for being one of the five most difficult countries to help. In one of its recent World Bank report, these five countries comprise almost 50 per cent of the world’s illiterate population and are the most difficult to help. The importance of the education cannot be over emphasized. Empowerment of the poor cannot be achieved through micro-credit schemes or some such palliatives. Providing credit to the people may be necessary but not sufficient. Education, training and technical support provide the basis for success.