| Privatisation-itis is a comparatively modern disease. Its victims are usually national economies with a tendency towards obesity, particularly in the public sector. Its symptoms in the initial stage are acute pangs of hunger (usually for ready cash), followed by the disgorging of public assets, then the after-effect of a lingering feeling of nausea, especially among the general public. It is best treated, like any surgical operation, swiftly, with skill, and with clean hands. |
| Pakistan caught the contagion as most developing countries did, during the 1980s. In the 1950s and especially during the 1960s under Ayub Khan, the emphasis had been on expanding the role of the public sector either through the creation of assets (WAPDA is one example), or later during the 1970s through the forcible appropriation of existing assets under Bhutto. The 1990s saw a reversal of that policy. It had become clear that the public exchequer could no longer afford to subvent the losses caused by over-staffed and inefficient public sector enterprises. `The state should not be in business,’ Mrs Margaret Thatcher - the mother of all privatisations - wrote emphatically in her memoirs The Downing Street Years. `State ownership effectively removes - or at least radically reduces - the threat of bankruptcy which is a discipline on privately owned firms.’ She added: `The evidence of the lamentable performance of government in running any business - or indeed of administering any service - is so overwhelming that the onus should always be on the statists to demonstrate why government should perform a particular function rather than why the private sector should not.’ [EXTRACT] |
Published in DAWN 24 July 1998, and reprinted in THE BARK OF A PEN (2001). |
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