Imran's Challenge of Governance.

Imran Khan, the Pakistan Prime Minister's,  integrity and sincerity towards making his country a better place economically, socially and in the eyes of the world is never in dispute. He has a clean record in terms of financial ethics and indeed what appeals to his many supporters, especially the younger generation is this sense of values and mission. Countries, however, cannot be run alone on intentions. Intentions have been be backed by actions and a sense of implementation which requires many aspect of the process and people to come together to give a result oriented system.

Imran, in my opinion has, in his zeal, taken on too much on his agenda of change, and this ever expanding menu creates its own challenges on delivery. Added to that has been a regional political scenario, especially Kashmir, which has created its own priority. In fairness Pakistan has never been an easy country to govern and added to years of economic mismanagement the task on the shoulders of Imran is far to heavy to carry in the current package of things he wants to tackle.

Yes education, health, social order, and ending corruption are all vital parts of the Imran agenda and need to be tackled. However, into this melee has been the ongoing investigations into corruption by former political leaders, most of who happen to be from the opposition parties, give a nasty twist to the perception of the process. Yes the accountability process is carried out by a supposedly independent government body and the higher courts in Pakistan have shown a remarkable independence from the government yet one would like to see government ministers and Imran himself not commenting on the cases against his political foes. The moment he or his ministers make a statement about the cases against former President Zardari or former Prime Minister Sharif, it erodes the independence of the accountability process.

Pakistan's democracy, which has had a stunted growth with interruptions of military rule, is far from mature. When a right wing religious party (JUI F) which fared abysmally in not only the last election but ever election in Pakistan, suddenly calls for a march on Islamabad and demands Imran Khan resign it harkens to the 1970's when street power was considered a means of political change. Indeed Imran Khan himself also employed the same tactics against the Sharif government, though in fairness he did not get the resignation he may have wanted, it did elevate him in political stature within the country. The JUIF ascertain that Imran is a 'selected' prime minister rather than elected one is a silly street slogan considering that while some merit will always be in the allegation of rigging in Pakistan elections, few would accept that the election that brought Imran to power was rigged to the point of him being considered 'selected'.

So what is the governance that should be expected of Imran Khan's government. My sincere opinion is that his first and foremost priority has to be the economy. He needs some seriously bright people to be heading up the economic policy formulation and implementation team. At the same time seeing things from abroad the oversight that some government agencies have been given into scrutinizing financial transactions even for foreign investments (individuals) needs to be toned down. Potential investors from abroad, including overseas Pakistanis are prone to ask that even if no more than normal questions are asked on their investments today, some years down the road who knows if the scrutiny will be more broad based and perhaps political too.

Creating an investment atmosphere is more than just announcing projects. In involves crucial confidence building steps, and for Pakistan shifting the economy towards and export oriented economy is a necessity given that it would boost foreign exchange reserves. Export orientation has to be towards value added goods, and for this base industrial sector incentives have to be put in place. Aligning the financial sector to boost not only exports but provide important financial support to export based industries is the need of the hour.

Imran's government has taken steps to tighten its spending and rationalize the government workforce. However these steps are just the beginning and to create a lighter more efficient government machinery also require higher levels of competence and expertise. Job creation has somehow been projected in Pakistan as the job of the government in power. In reality the government must create the conditions for job creation in the private sector and this means a rethink of the stimulus package that is needed for the private sector.

Pakistan has been plagued by what is known as 'circular debt' and its concerns years of mismanagement of the electricity sector in the country. Power theft and non payment of bills by a large segment of the population has meant that an endemic crisis in financing the power sector has resulted in circular debt which is simply rolled over with interest each year. There has to be reform of this sector and something bold has to be done about it. It weighs down the financial sector and also creates a very inefficient power supply system that cannot sustain itself in the long run.

Imran Khan's government must clearly understand that all the posturing in the public eye has its own place in terms of garnering support of their agenda. However, if they do not deliver on the economy then at the end of the day everything else is a wasted effort. I do believe that the agenda of reform has to be pared down to manageable levels and the priority on the economy should be foremost. Then within the economic plan various measures need to be taken to reform the system. Some contentious issues like sales tax and broadening the tax base, while very laudable, need to be implemented through a dialogue with the business community and to consider them the long term stakeholders of the benefits from reforms. Increasing taxes on the people who already pay the tax is not a solution as much as the IMF would prefer it, the solution is to broaden the tax base and for this the business community who pay taxes would certainly not object.

The passion for reform and transforming Pakistan has to be spearheaded by economic change and the social welfare that flows of this economic change is what would benefit the population at large. The government has to also seek to work in partnership with the business community rather than have a adversarial posture towards them. Once the economy starts to head in the right direction then the broader social agenda of the Khan government can be seen and will be more palatable to the people on the back of economic well being. The slogan has to be 'economy first'.