Post Reply 
 
Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Are we a poor country?
06-10-2008, 03:47 PM
Post: #1
Are we a poor country?
Pakistanis believe that we are limited in resources and options, and hence destined to remain poor. But are we a poor country?

Measured in terms of per capita income, we are indeed poor—our per capita income is $1,000. However, let us look at another index—the index of waste. A good beginning would be to look at the expenses on the VVIPS. We all know about our VVIP travel, complete with scores of “hangers-on.” The cost runs into several hundred million dollars.

Because our VVIPs like to travel in style, roads are blocked by the cars that follow them. The direct cost of this travel is huge but the disruption to domestic business could be larger. But the little VIPs cannot be left behind. They too waste a lot of money on their perks. They are very quick to grab the best real estate for themselves even at the cost of preventing serious development. In Islamabad, the most expensive area is around the Marriott and the secretariat. This is an area which could have had a number of large commercial construction. Several billions of dollars of real estate development and millions of jobs are forsaken for the welfare of the VIPs. Is that the sign of a poor country?

Move along Constitution Avenue and you will see at the Murree end of it a convention centre. Nice and big but what is remarkable about it is that it is never really used. In fact, it is never used for commercial purposes. We must be rich to forgo that kind of money. Or we merely wasteful? But only the rich can be that wasteful.

Go a mile further form the convention centre and you will see a sports complex lying empty. In Lahore, we have two stadiums, fortress and Gadhafi, which are lying empty most of the year. Some official presides over these places and runs them to prevent market activities from taking place and hence generating economic activity.

Sports in most countries are economic and entertainment activities. In the US a baseball team sells for many million dollars and even the players make large sums of money. In Pakistan the official cricket board and the officialdom at stadiums have not allowed our sports to develop. Note that even the World Wrestling Entertainment is a billion dollar company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. But then our officials have to go to see Test matches at state expense and keep the sports industry from developing.

Land is the most misutilised resource in our country. We have never allowed it to be properly developed for an economic purpose. In fact, officialdom has virtually banned commercial construction. However, hotels, mixed-use large complexes, department stores and blocks of flats are never allowed. Instead, we have a proliferation of recreational clubs for the elite. GOR Lahore, where officialdom does not even allow a school to be built, boasts three such clubs. The polo club in fact is even bigger than the GOR and contributes nothing to Lahore.

We have a large number of universities with large tracts of land, which totally remain dependent on the budget. They are understaffed and underutilised. If you go to a university campus at say 3 in the afternoon, it appears to be haunted house. Most of the campuses are now in the heart of town and have lovely lawns for the pleasure of their officialdoms. None of them however, has learnt form Harvard. The latter through its investments and fundraising has accumulated and endowment of 38 billion dollars. Punjab University, GCU and Islamabad University are sitting on prime land and not earning a penny out or it. Meanwhile they are using the lack of money as an excuse to limit academic development. Are our universities rich or wasteful?

Are we a poor country then? Let us summarize our answer! If we waste large sums of money on luxury travel of VIPS, we do not make best use of our prime city center land, we refuse to allow the development of a sports entertainment industry, even when we build stadiums and convention center they lie idle, and our universities waste their land endowments, we must be a rich country. At the very least, we are a very wasteful country.

Our officials are out on the road for many weeks a year looking for handouts on the basis of our being a poor country. Perhaps if they focused on controlling this waste, we might need to beg less.

The writer was formerly a vice-chancellor of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics. Email: nhaque_imf@yahoo.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=117467
Find all posts by this user
Quote this message in a reply
Post Reply 


Possibly Related Threads...
Thread: Author Replies: Views: Last Post
  Pakistan should target to become moderately developed country: Latest News LRE-Azan 0 3,947 09-11-2018 02:53 PM
Last Post: LRE-Azan
  ‘DHA is largest residential area of country’ Salman 0 4,713 01-22-2014 03:11 PM
Last Post: Salman
  Chief Justice Declares That The Money Of The Poor Will Not Be Plundered With Salman 0 6,336 08-26-2013 03:19 PM
Last Post: Salman
  Metro Bus Project Is For The Entire Country: Shahbaz Salman 0 4,295 02-08-2013 01:29 PM
Last Post: Salman
  Godown Road’s poor condition bane for residents of PHA flats Salman 0 4,167 12-26-2012 12:23 PM
Last Post: Salman
  D-13 case: poor coordination puts CDA chief in trouble Salman 0 3,975 12-21-2012 01:50 PM
Last Post: Salman
  Poor condition of service roads needs immediate attention Salman 0 4,445 11-05-2012 12:01 PM
Last Post: Salman
  ‘Poor’ CDA selling plots to generate funds Salman 0 3,938 07-27-2012 11:40 AM
Last Post: Salman
  Punjab plans solar panels for poor households Salman 0 4,124 06-29-2012 07:47 PM
Last Post: Salman
  ‘Poor-quality’ overhead bridge in Harbanspura crumples Salman 0 4,226 06-29-2012 07:41 PM
Last Post: Salman
  Bahria Town Has Launched Country Club In Lahore Salman 0 13,964 05-12-2012 02:29 PM
Last Post: Salman
  Poor maintenance of Chattar Park resented Salman 0 3,636 04-02-2012 12:45 PM
Last Post: Salman
  Poor sanitation on Airport Link Road irks public Salman 0 4,598 03-29-2012 12:36 PM
Last Post: Salman
  CM launches housing scheme for ‘poor people’ Salman 0 5,517 03-26-2012 11:41 AM
Last Post: Salman
  Country’s tallest building inaugurated Lahore_Real_Estate 0 4,115 02-21-2012 12:01 PM
Last Post: Lahore_Real_Estate
  ‘Country to get $2.5bn foreign exchange in coming months’ Salman 0 4,193 01-14-2012 02:51 PM
Last Post: Salman
  Multan Development News : Rs 600b road projects underway in country Salman 0 4,983 01-03-2012 12:31 PM
Last Post: Salman
  SMEDA launches pro-poor programme Lahore_Real_Estate 0 4,023 12-29-2011 11:36 AM
Last Post: Lahore_Real_Estate
  Pakistan, IDB finalise $3bn 'Country Partnership Strategy' Lahore_Real_Estate 0 3,718 12-03-2011 12:04 PM
Last Post: Lahore_Real_Estate
  NADRA facilitating citizens in country Lahore_Real_Estate 0 4,373 11-19-2011 11:58 AM
Last Post: Lahore_Real_Estate

Forum Jump:


User(s) browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)