IMF again! I think Pakistan can do more than this, rather much more than this. Only if everyone desires, it can be the one last time IMF monitors Pakistani economy. I think it is just the way most of Pakistani nationals are conditioned under some known or unknown locally and foreign governed circumstances favoring the elites of today and of course, yesterday. It is an old debate that if we try to give something to Pakistan, we can improve as a nation. Slogans like “Pakistan has given us many things. What have we given to Pakistan?” are misleading. Patriotism arises through “ours first” strategies, rather then preferring foreign products over ours. As a professional in IT, I have come about many such experiences where various generous offers from some of the leading Pakistani software/IT had been let down by the government and defense organizations provided by some very lame excuses, which most of the time stated that office automation and work flow management systems cut down human jobs that will increase joblessness. They forget the fact that automation and time saving is first step to economic and financial growth and industrial development. As they say, time is money! The people who will not be serving at their previous positions are mostly low wage or daily wage workers and clerks. They can be offered on some more constructive and beneficial roles.

For example, due to a big and ever increasing population of our wannabe-beloved country (except the decrease in FATA, Kashmir, and Balochistan), bigger cities are growing very rapidly and it has become very difficult to provide full services to the residents by the government. Smaller cities and towns are neglected and hence, they also require more manpower to manage them well. The trained manpower let go from the bigger, and to-be-automated, government and defense organizations will prove fruitful for city and town managements. Some well organized and well managed government monitored multi-storied apartments can be introduced in smaller cities and towns and this manpower can be used for their planning, building, and maintenance. This may grow the smaller cities and reduce the bigger cities to more manageable and reasonable sizes. Moreover, the lifestyles of people can be improved by providing them government monitored facilities, which will also raise awareness about many untouched issues such as cleanliness, waste disposal, pollution control, infestation control, presentation enhancements, etc. There can be many other uses devised for the trained manpower. The important point to be noticed here is that the same number of salaried people can be reused and the government and defense organizations may also be able to induce more manpower and produce more jobs depending upon the success rate of such national welfare projects.

According to statements from some economists on some private TV channels, many of the overseas Pakistanis have earned a big virtue all over the world, and if they can only send their savings to Pakistani Banks, Pakistan may never need any loan or donation. All they need is a VERY improved justice system and well implemented security policy. And I am not blabber about the same old independent judiciary poems here. I mean a lot more than that. I believe it is more about a competitive, well organized, progressive, visionary, calm, well aware, solution oriented, multi-talented, professional, and productive management. For example, everyone says police is not working well and everyone equates the police with burglars as a common notion.

The most common and seemingly wise answer that I heard from many to this notion states that the police are not given the right amount of salaries and they are not very well supported by the government, and therefore, they are not left with any choice but to be involved in such sort of corruptions. I personally think that such sort of allegations and justifications are both lame. Police is from Pakistani and they are people from within our nation who take up police jobs, hence, they are us. Now if we think of a person who could not get study opportunities as well as some of us have, or did have, and the person has to support himself and a considerably big family too, will he not try to earn as much as he can through any means? What do you think about the clerical staff in the government institutions and those fruit sellers selling items on high prices? Is that not corruption? Is that not as bad as the police? What I think is that police should be a sacred department meant for implementation of a very fair set of policies devised by the country’s parliament and judiciary. It should also be very responsible and friendly in its services. It role in the internal affairs should be as good as army for borders.

So you must be thinking like what it has to do with loans and IMF? The answer is that it has everything to do with IMF. It also has everything to do with the UN, the Security Council, NATO, World Bank, rest of the world, and US. A country where a poor man buys a piece of land after a lifelong savings and his property is captured by some strong invader group, will another poor man think about investing in one after knowing this? Now think about the situation when a medium level foreign investor thinks about cheaper labor in Pakistan and wants to start some business, and he comes to know about this situation through any of his contacts in Pakistan or through media; will he still think about it even if the investor is an overseas Pakistani? If he cannot trust Pakistan for investing in only a 3 Marla apartment in Karachi or Lahore, will he ever think about sending Money to Pakistani Banks as big as his life savings of may be millions of dollars?

One more thing that can prevent from IMF’ing again is by proving ourselves as a nation, rather than families and self centered conceited individuals only. Government, individuals from all the walks of life, and our (so-called) great leaders of today can initiate some Pakistani’s differences sublimation process, the gravest of which is the literacy level and literacy rate difference among Pakistanis. Ever wondered about why Punjabis have bigger understanding and vision in the big cities and the poor people in NWFP and FATA do not? Are the people of FATA, NWFP, Balochistan, and rural Sindh not Pakistanis? Ignorance is bliss, but it may not be the excuse behind keeping Pathans and Sindhis illiterate from villages when they are one of the toughest and most useful people. Why can’t a farmer’s son from Waziristan become a Ph.D. in Physics from MIT?

Hence, development of a collaborative and shared-motive society is the first step of getting rid of loans and start planning about a bright future. Otherwise, it will only be a crowd of IMF leaches… Forever! (God forbid!)

Waqas Rasheed – The writer is an IT professional and had recently returned from South Korea after completing his Ms in Multimedia and Communication Engineering.