| You either have to be very rich or very poor to be able to live in Pakistan. The rich can afford to because they can insulate themselves from reality; the poor have to because they have no option; they cannot escape their reality. Somewhere between these two layers lies a middle class that cannot rise above its condition and desperately does not wish to fall below it. |
| The formulation of a National Budget in any country is a formidable exercise. In a country like Pakistan that has such a yawning disparity between its stratified cassata of economic classes, a nation that has no means in place of transmitting the aspirations of 149 million people for action by a responsive, responsible government, an economic community that is inured to seeing private interests masquerade as public policies, a vassal state that has subcontracted its fiscal management to non-residents, there will inevitably be a chasm between what the public wants and what the Government is prepared to give. |
| The preparation of the National Budget follows a pattern that has now become a metronomic tradition. Seminars are held, usually in five star hotels, to elicit the views of a spectrum of commercial, industrial, professional, financial and agricultural interests. Opinions are heard, but not necessarily listened to. The golden gurus in the Ministry of Finance and the Planning Commission, satisfied that they have consulted the country, then develop a document that will meet the constitutional nicety of having something bulky tabled before the National Assembly and the Senate for adoption and (God forbid) debate. [EXTRACT] |
Publsihed in DAWN 2 July 2003, and reprinted in WHEN BUSH COMES TO SHOVE (2006). |
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