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Flawed planning is responsible for Pakistan’s current crisis

Specifically, it is the almost sudden and extreme shortage of flour, electricity, water and gas that has left Pakistanis truly perplexed. While the shortage of these commodities is always disconcerting, it is the suddenness, rapidity and scale of these shortages that have left people shocked.

End December onwards, the price of flour shot up and in many areas the commodity actually disappeared from the market. Suddenly the entire country is in the grip of endless load shedding. If the major urban centres are going through 'an hour on and an hour off' hourly load shedding, the smaller towns will remain without electricity for a greater part of the 24 hours.

Commercial, industrial and domestic life is under tremendous pressure throughout Pakistan. Besides hitting the industry and the trading classes, daily wage earners are losing their jobs, people’s domestic routines are being drastically curtailed. Electric gadgets are fast becoming a casualty of the half hourly and hourly load shedding schedules.

With the crisis now unfolding rather belated remedial and what must be routine measures for improving efficiency are being recommended. For example at high level meetings chaired early January onwards by the care-taker prime minister, relevant ministries have been directed to take remedial measures. The prime minister stressed the need for better coordination among concerned organisations of power to overcome the crisis.

The water and power ministry and PEPCO have been ordered by the PM to "develop a system of regular inspections of generation plants in order to assess the capabilities of the sources of electricity supply and accordingly plan the load management." Steps in collaboration with provincial governments, law enforcement agencies and public support, will be taken to avert sabotage activities.

The earlier claim made for example during early January was that sabotage activities post Benazir Bhutto's assassination had affected electricity supplies. Officials in a briefing to the prime minister, as reported in the January 7 online edition of the Pakistan Times, had assured him that "the restoration of electricity generation would improve till January 31, 2008". According to this estimate load shedding should have decreased. Instead, the reverse is happening. The government has already announced that this level of load shedding is likely to continue for another 18 months.

The positive scenario sketched for this debilitating load shedding is a fast growing industrial base. The only pertinent question would be that then every expanding economy should then face the similar problems of electricity and gas shortages. They don't because their governments and their relevant state institutions plan better. Industrial expansion does not occur suddenly, like a bolt out of the blue.

Unprecedented load shedding of gas has also begun. Those people, who had over the years become dependant on gas for cooking, heating and driving purposes, are now faced with a stark and bitter reality. Those dependants on gas as cooking and vehicle fuel may have to think of alternatives. Thousands if not millions of Pakistanis who have switched their cars to the economical and environment-friendly CNG system may perhaps soon be regretting their decision. There is no clear word on what the future of CNG supply stations will be. Some Press reports indicate that because of gas shortages the government maybe forced to review its earlier policy of encouraging car owners to switch to environment friendly CNG.

Water shortage is also on the rise. At present domestic users are the biggest sufferers. In some areas water can be purchased while others have to just live with sharp cuts in water supply. Water shortage will also adversely affect agriculture in the coming season. The shortage of irrigation water will make people turn to use of tubewells, further increasing pressure on electricity.

This scale and suddenness of shortages of so many basic commodities is unprecedented for Pakistan. People mostly find the current state incomprehensible. The tall claims of a prospering economy and an efficiently managed system are hard to take seriously. The incomprehensible is often explained lightly. Mythical explanations abound. It is an American conspiracy to destabilise Pakistan. The objective for this destabilisation is to create an opening for the Americans to come in and take control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons. Such explanations defy facts, logic and ground realities. Another explanation is that this crisis was created by this government to scare off the opposition parties from wanting to contest for a truly thorny throne! Yet another is that there are individuals within the bureaucracy that are seeking to sabotage the president. All these are no more than products of a mere 'gup shup' approach. None stand the test of fact and reason.

Our sense of desperation keeps forcing us to look outside for understanding the most obvious about ourselves. For example the Business Recorder on February 2 published an interview conducted with the world famous linguistic and political commentator Naom Chomsky. Naturally an anguished Pakistan asked Chomsky "What solutions do you propose for Pakistan in order for it to become a true democracy rather than a failed state?" Chomsky's response was what by now an average Pakistani citizen would have given. He said "by developing political and social arrangements in which the population can actually determine effective policy. That is what democracy is."

We need to look inwards to take remedial steps on the internal front. We need to clearly understand what has triggered our present non-security crisis. Only flawed planning, with no reference to short-term and long term adverse scenarios, is responsible for our current non-security crisis. This truly perplexing situation cannot be explained away simply as a symptom of bad politics or a fall-out of the growing problem of terrorism.

The objective analysis presented by independent informed people that has been published in the media does indicate absence of bad planning. Time and again we Pakistanis are confronted with the stark reality that unless the management of our country, its resources and people, is not undertaken along professional, accountable and institutionalised lines, the business of statecraft will remain substandard.

Substandard statecraft will continue to prevent Pakistan from being a great Asian power by virtue of its dedicated people, its rich resources and its strategic location. What is remarkable about Pakistanis is to never give up in the face of sustained odds, their determination to 'never say die.'

Nasim Zehra is an Islamabad -based national security strategist