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POWER, POLITICS AND POVERTY IN PAKISTAN
Poverty is not just about money; it is about access to resources. In simple terms it is deprivation from leading a life that is wanted by all and enjoyed by few. Pakistan ranks as one of the least developed countries of the world using standard GDP per capita statistics, a situation which worsens further when we compare Pakistan with other countries using the broader human development index. However one looks at deprivation, whether it is in the more standard indicators of a head-count measure for poverty, or access to water and sanitation. Pakistan’s record even compared to other developing countries in the region, is poor. By all accounts, Pakistan ranks high on most deprivation indices.
According to the Human Development Report, Pakistan has a low level on HDI (Human Development Index and ranks 127 out of 162. the flip of HDI is the HPI (Human Poverty Index) and using it as a National Poverty Line, the percentage of poor is about 47 per cent or about 70 million Pakistanis. Of them, about 40 million Pakistanis are below the poverty line. The Official poverty line adopted by the Planning Commission in 1998-99 is Rs. 670 per capita per month and it is been estimated that one-third of the total population is below the poverty line (according to unofficial estimates, it is a little over 37 per cent). Of the total population, 64 per cent have no access to potable water.
At least 6 million children between the ages of 5 to 9 are out of school. Of the remaining 14 million children, quality education may be available to a small minority. About 40 per cent of the children under 5 are malnourished. 55 per cent of the 10 years plus population is illiterate under a criterion of literacy which is not even basic by UNSECO standards. Investment in Public Sector Development Projects (PSDP) is decreasing consistently. It has come down to 3.6 per cent in 2002 from 7 per cent in 1988. there has been a sharp decline in poverty related subsidies from Rs. 5.2 billion in 1991 to Rs. 284 million in 2001. at the same time the tax burden increased by 4 per cent for the lowest income group while in deceased by 21 per cent for the highest income group. In a country where the magnitude of inequality is such that 20 per cent of the population at the lowest economic stratum enjoys 7 per cent of the resources and 20 per cent at the highest economic level use up almost half the country’s resources, reduction, let alone eradication of poverty is an insumountable task.
All the statisties are from Pakistan Human Condition Report 2002
Trends in PovertyIt is assumed that overall economic grwoth has a direct bearing on poverty leveli n a country: however, Pakistan’s experience reflects a conflict between the two. For example, high growth period of 1960s is associated in decline in poverty only in urban areas, whereas the poverty situation worsened in the rural areas. Incidence of high poverty in the rural areas in 1960s was due to eviction of tenants and rise inlandlessness. New technology was a key factor that allowed large landowners to resume land previously rented out for self cultivation. Increased mechanization led to decrease in demand for labour, which was one of the key reasons of the pauperization of the evicted agrarian workers in 1960s. Similarly, GDP was lower in 1970s than the previous decade but he poverty level declined because of massive rise public sector expenditure and public sector employment. It was mainly due to political willingness of Z.A. Bhutto’s government that the issue of poverty and economic factors were prominent. In that period, share of social sector in development plans increased substantially and development expenditure in 1976-77 was an extra-ordinary 11 per cent. The relationship between power, politics and poverty is evident from the fact that a number of important changes were enforced in economic and social structure of Pakistan with positive impact on poverty reduction. In 1980s, the migration of non-skilled and semi-skilled workers to the Middle East and their remittances were the single biggest factor which resulted in high growth rates for the economy and simultaneously, for poverty reduction.
The high growth rates of 1980s were also helped by an active and spendthrift public sector, but things began to change with the introduction of International Monetary Fund’s structural adjustrment programme (SAP) introduced at the end of 1980s and the beginning of 1990s. Since the initation of structural adjustment programme the overall growth rate has fallen well below the trend level. The real per capita income in the 1990s had been about 1.3 per cent, which failed to make any significant dent in poverty. In 1990s, as an obsession to cut fiscal deficit, public expenditure has been cut and developmetn expenditure, in particular, has borne the brunt. Remittances, which have played a very important role in 1970s and 80s in alleviating poverty also, declined. Every single indicator which has some poverty freducing impact such as economic growth, manufacturing, employment, public expenditure, development expenditure, remittances and subsidies has worsened since the government adopted SAP.
At the turn of new centurty, government signed new agreemtn with IMF as a result of which Pakistan was expected to cut its already trimmed down development expenditure. IMF policies were self-contradictory and ensured that they fail. Pakistan faced a massive problem of decentralization with high number of sick units. Despite thia, it cut down tariffs as agreed in the SAP, providing a risk of further de-industrialization. Tariff cut also mean loss in revenue, making the budget deficit hard to meet. The tariff cuts also raised imports, making it more difficult to meet the balance of trade deficit. Another conditionality was the consistent raise in gas and power rates a major blow to industrialization. In view of all the programme inconsistencies, failing to meet targets was almost inevitable.
DEFENCE SPENDING, DEVELOPMENT AND POVERTYPakistan’s military budget is round 6 per cent of GDP and military expenditure is the second largest component, after interest payments, of the budget each year. This spending on the military is more than twice the expenditure on health and education combines. Pakistan’s military budget in terms of a share of GDP is the eighth largest in the world, which doesn’t make any sense for country which has debts outstanding equivalent to around 98 per cent of the GDP and has had a growth rate over the last decade averaging barely 4.5 percent. Undoubtedly, the state of progress of the economy is bound to have an impact on the military and its budget.
The military as an institution, even when it is not overtly in power, is a major player in the economy through the long arms of its Foundations. More recently, and most visible, is the presence of the three forces in the urban housing sector. We all know that large tracts of extremely profitable urban land are owned by the military services, but the transformation of this land into housing schemes for their personnel, further highlights the huge advantages and benefits the military has an institution and the role that it plays in the economy. In addition, scores of serving and retired generals and senior officers are all palced in lucrative (civilian) positions.
POVERTY AND BONDED LABOURIt seems that ‘bonded labor’ has been around in Pakistan for centuries, and is embedded and sanctified by traditional and cultural social and economic practices. In terms of severity and scale, it seems that landless sharecroppers, particularly in sourther Sindh and somewhat in southern Punjab, are the largest category and suffer the most, followed by agricultural wage workers in thse two regions, followed by brick kiln workers primarily in the Punjab and in NWFP. These categories robably makeup the major proportion of bonded labour.
The main feature of the bonded labour system is that a debt iw owed, which gives rise to an explotative and ‘bonded’ nature of relationship between the creditor ( in this case, presumably the employer rather than a third party), where the employer can restrict the movement of the debtor, restrict his right to work elsewhere, expropriate the emplo0yee’s output which the employer can sell in the open market, and can get forced labour out of him until that time the debt is repaid. The fact that the debt is seldom repaid and is passed on from one generation to the next, is an equally important aspect of this relationship.
A PILER study on bonded labour estimates between 1.8 / 6.8 million persons in bonded sharecropping families across Pakistan. Given the lack of statistics and adequate data, either about overall debt or its bonded nature, and large differences in definition, such huge discrepancies between different estimates are likely to arise. Nevertheless, if one was to consider even the lower end of the estiamte, regardless of severity of bondage, we would account for five per cent of the current 40 million below the poverty line in Pakistan.
The PILER Study argues that ‘conditions of bondage are both a result and sustenance of unequal economic and political power’. As a result of this extra-economic coercion, which is often overlooked, if not totally ingored, due to the attitude of the local level administration / police, justice, officialdom cases of the landlord or his employers resorting to violence and rape are not uncommon even when the original relationship may have been mainly one of a debt owed. Beatings and sexual abuse of women are often heard of and many such landlords maintain private jails so that the indebted haris do not flee. Issue of poverty, more generally need redressing, but equally importantly, do those of violence.
MACRO ECONOMIC FACTORSPOVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGY PAPER OF PAKISTANThe summarized draft of PRSP repeatedly said that Government believes that it is not its business to be in business, but failed to recognize the fact that running a government is too serious a business to be left alone to market forces. The financial crisis that hit the East Asian countries in d1997 demonstrates clearly the need for stornger regulations of the domestic capital market and the banking sector. That crisis also triggered off a collapse of the real economy and led to the dramatic reversal of poverty.
The fundamental assertion is the growth is linked to stabilization, which is tto be achieved through tax reforms, expenditure management, prudent monetary policy, external adjustment, and debt management. Reducing the deficit continues to be the main indicator of how much the economy has stabilized, much like in sturctural adjustment programmes. Tax reform is cited as essential. The reforms suggested include a widening of the tax net, levying of General Sales Tax (GST), improvement of the revenue collection system and increasing the professionalism of the Central Board of Revenue (CBR). The ultimate goal is to increase the tax to GDP ratio. Levying of new GST on items out of the GST net at high percentage will further cripple the poor majority of people. The new taxes imposed in last budget on food items did just that, 2003 budget imposed an additional 20 GST on imported edible oil seeds which will result in sharp increase in prices. There is an enormous adverse impact of reliance on indirect taxes, that not only result in excessive burdens on the poor, but also have the perverse result of subsidizing the non-poor, it is feared that the trend would continue and the poorer sections woul dbe further marginalized under the new tax system.
In Pakistan, it was the ministry of finance that led the PRSP process. Poverty is not a one or two dimensional phenomenon and it is definitely not just about numbers. It is a very complex human issue with various dynamics and other ministries such as human development, women development, labour and trade should have played a more proactive role.
Thinking that privatization alone is the panacea of all ills and that it will attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flow without taking any other measures is rather naïve. In absence of political stability of the country and peace in the region, isolated effort of privatization will not bring the desired progress in foreign investment. It needs to be understood that public provision is not a bane and privatization is nto a cure-all remedy, it will only put more people out of jobs with the downsizing that follows or precedes the privatization process. It has also led to increase in poverty for two reasons; one is the absence of vigorous private investment for creating new employment opportunities for the displaced labour and second is the absence of adequate social safety nets.
The government failed to recognize downsizing as a managerial failure in the public sector, which makes scapegoats of workers. Instead of retrenehment, public investment is needed to make public sector workers more productive and offer more and better services. In any case, much of privatization is nothing more than a transfer of resources from corruption to windfall profits. As the privatization of service providing public sector enterprises, which only bill its consumers of service charges, is all set to go ahead, a steep increase in the prices of basic utilities is expected which will have an adverse impact on poverty reduciton.
The PRSP also details the decrease in oil prices as a poverty reduction measure, but that too is not true as the decrease in prices affects only the direct consumer of oil, the rich and middle-class owners of cars and motor cycles and the people in transport business. Decreased oil prices have no direct impact in reducing poverty as the decision is nto backed by proper government mechanism to monitor that private transport service providers also decrease their services’ fee. Rural poor do not get benefit of the reduced rates to get their goods to the urban centres and for urban poor there has been no relief in public transport fares, hence no impact on poverty reduction.
Most shocking of all is the revelation that 90 percent of the revenue that the government will genrate by liquidation of the state owned enterprises, most of them quite profitable, will be spend on debt servicing and the rest will be spent on other sectors. This just goes to show how big a farce the independent PRSP process is. No government, no matter how fragile its commitmetn to its people is, would devise a policy that will not only result in absolute absence of any assets to fall back on but also a total lack of any sustainable development and income generation programme if it is formulated independent of foreign pressure.
Subsidies are being increasingly decreased on the pretext of fiscal stringency. But there is little evidence of substantive substitutes as targeted assistance, or serious attempts at blocking major leakages into elite coffers.
MULTIATERAL ORGANIZATION, GLOBALIZATION, TRADE LIBERALIZATION AND POVERTY With international debt accumulated to around $35 billion, and with the IMF and World Bank watching and ordering Pakistan’s each and every economic and political move, the term ‘independence’ seems to have lost much significance in modern Pakistan. Adherence to structural adjustment packages simply to keep the economy afloat has meant that economic policy is made for us rater than by us. Whether it is privatization, the exchange rate of the rupee, power and utility tariffs, or the subsidy on wheat, everything is decided by advisors and international bureaucrats who refuse to acknowledge the impact of these deleterious policies.
As Pakistan’s exposure to these global organisations has grown since 1988, the economy has taken a nose-dive. Not only have standard and conventional indicators worsened, but there has been substantial worsening of the level and extent of poverty in Pakistan, which has more than doubled in only a decade. Moreover, the provision of large amounts of loans to the country, has not resulted in an improvement of the economy, but has also doubled the debt burden in a decade. While Pakistan’s managers are certainly responsible for a great deal of the misdoing regarding the economy, they share this responsibility with a critical component and instrument of globilisation, the IFIs.
STATE POLICIES AND LACK OF POLITICAL WILL TO ADDRESS POVERTY ISSUEThe new rise in poverty levels over the past decade and half is no coincidence and comes as a direct result of the global economic bluepring adopted by some governments and forced on others in the form of structural adjustment programmes by international donors such as the IMF and World Bank. Pakistan belongs to the latter category. This model of privatization and deregulation claimed that the benefits of economic growth would of their own accord ‘trickle down’ to the rest of society. Yet the policies of liberalization themselves ensured that this could not happen, leading to the massive gaps in income between rich and poor experienced across the world today. It has become part of conventional wisdom of development policy that reasonable progress in reducing poverty requires a political leadership committed to this as a goal. There is no substitute for a genuine commitment on the part of the decision-makers to use the resources efficiently and effectively for poverty reduction ends.
Last year, a letter of intent was sent by the Government of Pakistan to the Managing Director of the IMF. Once again, the letter indicated the readiness of the government ‘to take any additional measure appropriate’ for achieving reform objectives. The reform programme identified is not unusual and once again, includes in it many sensible features such as those requiring better accounting and once again, includes in it many sensible features such as those requiring better accounting and reporting. The Letter of Intent noes that the Government of Pakistan ‘will aprove elimination of the GST (general sales tax) exemptions on pharmaceuticals, effective from April 1, 2002, which will generate an estimated revenue gain of Rs 6 billion (on an annual basis)’. This policy is a good illustration that governments in Pakistan are either ignorant of what causes poverty or callously indifferent. Poverty is caused in no small measure by poverty insensitive economic policies such as fiscal policy, monetary policy and pricing policies. Thus, a poverty reduction strategy should include an account of how mainstream economic policies will be made poverty sensitive. However, evidence suggests that it is often the structural adjustment type Poverty Reduction Growth Facility (PRGF) conditionality agreed to by the government that generates the poverty.
There are several issues of importance here. It is unfortunate that the government is accountable to the IMF and not to its own citizens. Second, while fiscal discipline is important, flexibility is essential during an economic slowdown. Thus, this kind of blind fiscal discipline can be anti-growth depending on the timing, and is likely to enhance and not reduce poverty. Poverty reduction requires serious structural reforms such as land reform and not what is normally referred to as ‘structural’ reform. However, Pakistani government prefer the politically easier alternatives of poverty sensitivity and consistency when framing mainstream economic policies. The reason for that is whether we have elected democrarcy or military, the skewed distribution of land favours and people in power. Most of the people who do get elected belong to the landed elite and Pakistan army is one of the biggest land holder in the country, therefore, they are least interested in bri9nging about some change. Approximately 68,000 acres are under cultivation in the military farms at Okara alone where the tenants are facing worst form of state aggression because they asked for the land ownership rights. In fact, maintaining the status quo benefits their vested interests. The economic and political disparities are to be blamed for aggravating the problems of the agrarian worker.
In the budget for the fiscal year 2003-04, the PSDP has been increased to Rs 160 billion and the allocation of the poverty reduction related programmes have also increased but these measures will not bear any substantial gains if the mechanism of public works programmes in improved. Such is the level of corruption that almost 70 per cent of the budget gets lost between the government officials and their contractors and only 30 percent is actually spent on the projects and that too is usally so mismanaged that it fails to bring about the desired affect. Quite interestingly, of the 160 billion devoted to development, 113 billion will be spent by federal government and over 54 percent of this amount (61.3 billion) will go to ministries and divisions.
Another government policy that is against the interests of the poor people is the new labour policy. The most damning aspect of the policy is that the right of association is still conditional, which is contrary to ILO conventions. Associations can be formed in industrial outfits where 10 or more that 10 laborers work. Majority of workers work in informal sector and they are denied the right of association. Though some rights are stipulated for agricultural wokers working in corporate farms, the workers of agriculture sector other than those working for corporate farms are still not granted the right of association. It shows that the government does not recognize peasants and sharecroppers as worker and refuse to give them the right to organize. The seasonal workers are also excluded in this policy that forms a major chunk of agro-sector labour force. The right to minimum wages, which is a core labour right, remains highly restricted and no provisions are provided in relations to home based workers, informal and agriculture sector workers. Corporate agriculture is a sure way of increasing pauperization of the rural poor. Even if the federal government reverses its policy of exempting agriculture from labour laws, labour displacement is unavoidable in an emphasis upon intensive mechanization.
At the per capita poverty line of Rs.670 per month and a household size of 6.8 members, the house-hold poverty line is Rs.4560 per month. If there is one earner per household (HH) then that household would be making only 55 percent of the income required to stay above poverty line. For the income group between below Rs.1000 per month and Rs. 2500 per month the “Average number or earners per household is 1.48 (See Table2). That is, the HH income of minimum wage earners is about Rs.3700 per month. This is below the house-hole poverty line of Rs.4560 per month. If the minimum wage were to be increased to Rs.3081 per month (i.e. by 23 percent) then the above minimum wage HH will just exceed the poverty line. Similarly, the take home salary of a government servant in Grade-1 is Rs.2900 per month. For this income group the average number of earners per HH is about 1.70 (see insert table) and the household-income is likely to just above the poverty line. This group is in strong vulnerability zone and their take home pay may be linked formality to the evolving HH poverty line.
From the perspective of poverty reduction, there is need to raise the minimum wage to Rs.3081 per month i.e. to the house-hold poverty line of Rs.4560 per month. Further, since the legal domain of the current minimum wage legislations limited to a small subset of the formal sector, consideration should be given to extend its domain to the informal sector. This will have a significant poverty reduction affect for a large group of very poor wage earners. No employment generation policies would work for poverty reduction if they are not backed by the recommend increase and universalization of minimum wages and workers’ right of unionization and collective bargaining.
TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONSTransnational Organizations are also playing their role in subjugation of the people of the third world countries. The biggest examples in this regard are the two multinational companies selling tea in Pakistan. As they have their tea gardens in Kenya, they import inferior quality of tea from Kenya at much higher price than what Indian or Indonesian tea, of much superior quality sells for. It is natural and very easy for them to make Pakistan a captive market. Secondly, the multinational companies that are running their operations in Paksitan import the basic chemicals used in preparation of pharmaceutical products are farm fertilizers from their sister concerns in Western countries and they too buy it at inflated prices to maximize their profit, both on the raw material as well as the finished product. The result is that only the consumer suffers, hence increase in the poverty of the consumer.
POWER RELATIONS IN PAKISTAN AND PRO-POOR POLICES The concern for the pro poor policies is the consequence of a deep rooted disillusionment with the development paradigm which placed exclusive emphasis on pursuit of growth. It was claimed that foreign investment will result in rapid growth which in turn would lead to trickle down effect, through higher employment and real wages would alleviate poverty. But these so called progrowth initiatives, in absence of any pro-poor policies, failed to achieve the objective.
In this regard, political power structure within Pakistan and external pressures that lead to the policy formation needs to be examined. In Pakistn, political parties represent politics of patronage, where they get votes because of the favour of the tribal /clan/ family chief. The elected represented are not accountable to their voters but to the clan’s head, hence their apathy to the plight of people. Because of this lack of legitimacy and transparency in electoral process, these political parties give in to the foreign diktats when they are pressured from the external forces as happen when Pakistan faced sanctions under Pressler and Symington Amendments. Such tactics by the US, compounded by the eroded role of state and increase in the power of IFIs, clearly depict the lack of concern among the political parties to redress this issue. There is an ideological consensus among the power brokers that the people will remain at the periphery of the power centres. That is why in the much hyped local government system, the election of Nazim, who has some authority is elected indirectly so that only people with the money can get to be the Nazims. This acute alienation of masses from decision-making process, by all the political parties, has created a vacuum for the emergence of a grass root political group that will involve a greater number of people in decision making process.
The most obvious way to achieve poverty reduction is through export led growth through labour intensive technologies. We need to get rid of the policies that produce enclave economies where a few are prosperous and a vast majority of people remaining poor. The resources should be directed to the sector where majority of the population work and in pakistan agriculture is that sector. We also need ot orient the growth of economy where the most used means of production is the one that poop people posses. That is semi or non skilled labour.
Fulfilling rights to social justice is the central goal in whatever government does. This asks for substantive adherence to the national constitution and to international conventions and laws, which define development as sustained realization of an expanded range of rights. Hence poverty impacts should be mainstreamed rather than dealt with separately and, therefore, in danger of being sacrificed whenever convenient to (higher) or (broader) objectives of religion, security, integration, modernization, progress, development or whatever else. Poverty reduction requires both a reduction in specific aspects of deprivation as well as in the absolute number of poor citizens.
The analysis of poverty eradication should go forward from counting deficits of individuals and households towards reforming the social, economic and political systems that systemictically result in the acute deprivation of millions of citizens. In the face of gross inequity, counterveiling power should be provided by government so that the muscle of market and other Mafia can be countered politically and socially, in order that the poor gain from additional skills and other assets. PRSP shoud recognize that rapid growth would not solve the problem unless similar emphasis is placed upon redistribution of assets. Agrarian reforms are an example of required structural change. Government has an obligation to facilitate and nurture mobilization of the poor as enabling their own voices to be heard, and listened to, in design and implementation of all government programmes.
Government is correct in emphasizing expanding employment. But it is no less important to acknowledge the need for decent work. Hence universalization and enforcement in all sectors and all forms of work of minimum wages and social security is essential. Even child labour cannot be meaningfully addressed as long as adults, especially women, are denied decent incomes. Since the state continues to retract from subsidized public provision of basic services, wages and social security have become even more important to poverty reduction.
Forced labvour should be seen as a major obstacle to poverty reduction, through the abuse and exploitation of bonded haris in particular, because government will not even acknowledge it as a serious problem.
Institutional reforms will emphasize equity and priorities through local control over resources. Political devolution to communities is the requirement, which goes much beyond the administrative decentralization to local government. Such devolution will require secure and adequate fiscal base to local government.
CONCLUSION The main themes which suggest why poverty continues to exist in Pakistan at the scale that it does, relate to the adherence to IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programmes which end up causing poverty; the militarization of the economy and of society; the position of women in society and in the legal system; the denial of access to assets particularly land; the deprivation of health and education opportunities particularly as cuts in development expenditure continue; and, the lack of democracy and of an environment which allows public participation.
If macroeconomic policy is one of the main cuases not just for continuing poverty, but for creating it as we argue, any government serious of alleviating poverty will need to follow economic policies very different from those that have become standard in Pakistan. Policeis which distance themselves from structural adjutment and required icnreased and effective development expenditure, for example, will have to be adopted. Advocacy NGOs and activists will need to continue their pressure on government highlighting anomalies which accrue from it aciton.
Militarization in Pakistan has not allowed democracy to take root in the country and has also made peace in the region hostage to military adverturism. While political society has to play a more mature role in the context of developments in Pakistan internally, along with other components of civil society, an attempt has to be made to have greater peace with India. At a time when countries are forming economic and political unions with their neighbours, South Asia continues to be the only large regional entitiy which is no where nearer to becoming a regional trading bloc. The gains from peace and from tarde between Paksitan and the other countries in SAARC, particularly India, ought to be high on the agenda of all countries if they have any serious desire to alleviate poverty and to evolve into mature societies, economies and nations,
In the context of Pakistan, unless women are put first when it comes to educate, development, the legal system or inpublic participation, the country is unlikely to develop in any significant manner. There is a need for government to review its strong gender biases and for men and women’s group to put pressure on government to make policy which shows affirmative action towards women.
If some poverty is created through the lack of access to assets and land, a programme of land distribution need sot be inititated. The distribution of already existing state land to landless farmers and sharecroppers is a zero-cost strategy. Not only will it bear no expense, it will be a politically popular move and will also, in all likelihood ensure far greater agriculture output once the landless become landowners, of even 4-8 acres. The sense of ownership and the freedom to make and implement decision ought to generate another Green Revolution dramatically reducing rural poverty and bonded labour. Of course, a land reform or land distribution programme needs to be supplemented with the provision of credit from formal and non formal sources. If things continue the way they are, there is likelihood that of a rapid increase in poverty in coming years, which could lead to a systematic breakdown of the state. Serious commitment on part of government and inclusion of masses and civil society in decision-making process is required to avert this disaster.
SELECTED BIBLOGRAPHY Amjad, R. and AR Kemal, ‘Macroeconomic Policies and their Impact on Poverty Alleviation in Pakistan’, The Pakistan Development Review, Vol. 36, No. 1, Spring 1997
Centre for Research on Poverty Reduction and Income Distribution (CRPRID), Pakistan Human Condition Report 2002, CRPRID, Islamabad, 2002.
Gazdar, H, Review of Pakistan Poverty Data, Department of International Development, London, 6 April, 1998.
Mahbubul Haq Centre for Human Development, in collaboration with United Nations Development Programme, Pakistan (MHCHD/UNDP), A profile of Poverty in Pakistan, Islamabad, February 1999.
Paksitan institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), Bonded Labour in Pakistan: an Overview, PILER, Karachi, october 2000.
Planning Commission, Government of Pakistan, Draft Chapter on Poverty Alleviation for the Ninth Five Year Plan (1998-2003), Islamabad, 1998.
Planning Commission, Governmetn of Pakistan, Three Year Poverty Reduction Programme 2001-04, Governmetn of Pakistan, Islamabad, February 26, 2001.
Social Policy and Development Centre, Social Development inPakistan: Annual Review, 1998, SPDC, Karachi, 1998.
Social Policy and Development Centre, Social Development in Pakistan: Annual Review, 2000 Towards Poverty Reduction, SPDC, Karachi,2000.
Social Policy and Development Centre, Social Development in Pakistan: Annual Review, 2001 Growth, Inequality and poverty, SPDC, Karachi, 2001.
World Bank, Pakistan Poverty Assessment, Report no. 14397-PAK, Washington, 1995.
World Bank, Pakistan Poverty Assessment, Poverty in Pakistan: Vulnerabilities, Social Gaps, and Rural Dyanmics, Report No. 24296, Pak,Islamabad, 2002. (By Arif Hasan, URC)
If all basic public services get privatised - essential public services that were once affordable and universally recognised as the state's duty to provide to all citizens - why should people be taxed to pay a redundant government for its keep? If a government cannot deliver in its most primary and vital duties, the way should be cleared for a government that can.
By Najma Sadeque
Touched by the suffering of people across the country, women's organisations have constantly been emerging to come to the rescue. Such altruism can be a double-edged sword. Their help is absolutely necessary; at the same time it enables government to increasingly repudiate its duties. All too often such organisations become trapped in becoming a piece of plaster for the government: they want to work in neglected, niche areas, not replace government duties, yet they are unable to abandon those in any kind of need.
No outside institutions have been more responsible for the deterioration of the conditions of the masses, especially women, as World Bank and IMF through their manipulative, anti-poor policies. Government collusion may be also to blame but that hardly exonerates a self-styled economic and financial authority. The more they fail and destroy, the more raucous becomes their empty jargon and hypocritical piety.
Even if our governments have failed in their duties to their citizens, the principle remains that it is the state's duty to run certain basic public services that no individual can provide for himself, especially the majority of modest means. These include electric, gas and water supply, public sanitation, public transport, basic health care and hospitals, school education, roads, and so on. These are known as public goods and their provision by the state has been the acknowledged practice all over the world. The exception in the area of health is perhaps America, while Scandinavia leads the world in public services. In fact, half of the peoples earnings are deducted towards these, but the citizens would have it no other way, because the quality of service is comprehensive and superior, and cheaper through taxes than private services.
The cost of providing and maintaining public goods is shared by taxpayers. None of these are supposed to be privately owned, because private operators only work for profit and they would sell such services only to those who could afford the high price.
In recent years the cost of these services in Pakistan have been soaring and have hit the poor especially hard so that they have to make do with the least possible. Suddenly a few years ago, the poor were being asked to pay the costs of all medical care - x-rays, blood and other tests and all medicines. The only thing they were not charged for was the examining doctor taking a look at them. Being illiterate or uninformed - since the state does not even bother to tell people about what concerns them most - the bewildered patients resigned themselves to praying they wouldn't die if the treatment was beyond their means.
Why had the government denied a basic right of people? The state had without consulting the public that pays for their keep, acceded to World Bank's demand for imposing 'user charges' on public services towards repaying ballooning loans -- which the people had never wanted or needed. While the government continues to run public health services, it seems about to change. Now the threat looms of having to pay even higher costs or go without healthcare at all.
But that's not all. Something even more basic than public goods is also being threatened -- known as the commons. The notion of the commons is really common sense and it arose independently in all parts of the world, and until recently it has never been disputed. There are certain things that are basic to survival, without which there can be no existence such as the water of the rivers and the seas, the forests that recycle the air and channelise water and provide all our essentials including food, fodder, medicines and construction materials.
If any individual or group takes control over all these and denies people access to them, they would simply die. Therefore all these were considered to be under common ownership. And people shared the responsibility of looking after the commons. Even under monarchies, although the emperor owned all territory, the use of the commons was always considered to be the right of the people. For rural people, the commons are particularly important because open pastures are necessary for livestock to graze around the year. Pastures are a source of rich manure for farm fields or fuel. It is also essential for people, because open spaces and watching nature at work undisturbed, is the essential source of knowledge and creativity, provides inspiration, and is needed for recreation as well as spiritual health.
As bearers of children, and carers of families and nature, no one gets hurt more by the snatching away of the commons and public goods than women, especially when she is not a wage-earner.
Most governments of agricultural developing countries have neglected the development of rural areas so that the commons is the only source of sustenance for the rural poor. The callousness falls on women as well although agricultural output would not be the same since women do anywhere between 60 to 80 per cent of agricultural work, largely as unpaid labour.
Although nature needs no help from people as such, if people make intensified use of it causing changes in its configuration, people will have to manage that part of nature so that it does not get over-exploited or polluted or diseased and die out. This is the care that has been increasingly lacking under industrialisation and urbanisation. After the colonisers' left, whatever part of the commons the authorities chose was arbitrarily reserved for themselves or contracted out for commercialisation. Consequently poor people who depend mostly on the commons for their sustenance suffer terrible deprivation.
It is bad enough that World-Bank and IMF - US-dictated commercial banks that shamelessly pretend to be development banks - compel debt-ridden governments to exact indirect taxes from the poor as well, because of loans and further loans to pay off interest. But the World Trade Organisation (WTO), born at the same time as World Bank and IMF in 1947 under a different name, and pushed into the wings by USA until the time was ripe to use it for American ends - is even worse. The astonishing part about the WTO is that, unlike the World Bank and IMF which are technically owned by governments, WTO is a creation of major US multinational corporations with the objective of a world that is run purely by private enterprise - essentially giant ones; where there are no welfare states or services, and the governments cannot tell them what they can or cannot do--. Governments are only supposed to ensure that corporations are not hindered in any way while they exploit labour, resources and markets to the hilt to squeeze out the maximum profit.
How did this happen? By deceit, in which developing countries had no say. Historical evidence bears out how WTO was illegally created. But it is equally disgraceful that most developing country governments did not fight back, and compromised themselves intead.
About a year and a half ago, three confidential documents from the WTO Secretariat were leaked out in UK. They revealed the secret ties between big business and government. Whether influenced or bought over, the concerned persons had been corrupted enough to share confidential negotiation documents and inside information with corporation leaders. These revealed the negotiation positions of the European Union, the USA and the developing countries. The multinationals had been feverishly making plans for almost two years to bulldoze drastic pro-business changes in the WTO over public objections.
Prior information about the stand being taken by the various blocs enabled the multinationals to arm themselves with pseudo-legal arguments or arm-twisting tactics against resisting governments. Earlier when NGO activists had sought the same information, they were refused or told that no such papers existed.
The corporations were in fact gunning for foreign direct investment in services to the extent of forcing governments to allow privatisation of public services, even water--. Which is why Southern governments are busy selling or leasing off both the commons and public goods. Already a number of countries have been forced into this with disastrous consequences. And that is why, in spite of industrialisation and overproduction all over the world, there is more inequality and poverty than ever before, far greater than during colonization.
WTO alone is not responsible. World Bank and IMF have after all been paving the way for Northern, particularly US, capital, to take over the economies of the world, by encouraging and speeding the so-called developing world into unrepayable debt. Renato Ruggeiro, the former WTO Director-General had put it very bluntly: "we are writing the constitution of a single global economy." That was the objective of the colonisers all along. That is the objective of WTO and Northern corporate interests. Women, be warned. – These are serious violations of human, civil, cultural and religious rights. (The News-YOU 1, 03/06/03)
Pakistan Federal Budget 2003 2004 Anything for the poor?
After spending 86.4 per cent of all revenue collected on 'debt servicing', 'defence', 'grants' and 'civil government', the government will be left with just Rs. 85 billion, or Rs. 586 per person annually or Rs. 1.60 per person daily to spend on developing this country. With this money our politicians and bureaucrats assume they will solve the problems of the poor
By Majid SheikhThe Federal Budget 2002-2003 seems an innocent document on the face of it. There are no new taxes in an age of decreasing taxes and the deficit gaps have been narrowed as per IMF dictat. For such subservience the bureaucrats have given themselves a salary increase and the defence budget has been increased with no questions asked.
What does such a document hold for the common man? This is the question that should be uppermost in the mind of every person who seeks a better life in this 'God-gifted' land of ours. What does the macro picture mean at the micro level? For the common person, who does not read this newspaper, will life change, even marginally? In this brief piece let us look at the macros. Having done so to a reasonable extent, though such a look calls for a detailed study, it then makes eminent sense to study the micro phenomenon and to see how changes at the to | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
