Dr Farrukh Saleem’s column on March 23 highlighted massive losses suffered by many public sector organisations. The losses quoted by the writer were in billions, raising the question: why are so many organisations in the public sector when many of their operations could be managed by the private sector? The government should only govern, leaving the trade and industry for the private sector to establish and manage.
Leave aside all other loss-makers, how long have we been hearing about the privatisation of PIA? Recent news about this highflier is how it took off and landed with one tyre missing. How its flight attendants didn’t report on duty after landing in Canada. Anxious and tired passengers have to stand waiting for their luggage to arrive.
PIA attracts more attention because its planes fly. Comparatively, not much attention is paid to the Pakistan Steel Mills which has been out of commission since 2015 or for that matter the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) that suffered a loss of Rs900 billion as quoted by Dr Saleem. However, its residential colony situated on the canal bank road in Lahore has fabulous houses. Does it matter if the organisation accumulated billions of rupees in losses?
The cumulative losses suffered by the state-owned departments are no secret. The main reasons follow. First, there are too many unneeded departments, now called ‘authorities’ ostensibly for the sake of impressing the public even though the same tried and tested hands that ran the system earlier now head the renamed organisations. Two, the so-called authorities are over-staffed and occupy huge new buildings constructed with the connivance of the government officers and contractors involved in their construction. Newly built and commissioned multi-storey buildings for NADRA, Punjab Statistics Department, Old Age Benefit Department and Population Planning Department are built in a row adjacent to each other and located on the Nazaria Pakistan Road. None of these buildings occupies an area of less than five kanals on prime land. And none of these structures consist of less than five storeys and basements to add.
But the Punjab Agriculture Food and Drug Authority building near Thokar Niazbeg on Multan Road stands out. Taxpayers would be shocked to know that PAFDA is situated on 64 kanals of very expensive land. The cost of land alone is definitely more than Rs200 million a kanal. In other words, merely the cost of the land amounts to more than one billion rupees. How this authority balances out the overall cost of land and construction is known only to its accomplished planners in the government. This white elephant like many others in the public sector will continue to add to national losses year after year.
Dr Saleem quoted many government organisations that have been incurring huge losses. Hence as mentioned above, the government should only establish and manage administrative departments such as the civil service, police and taxation etc. and privatise all the loss-making departments it now controls. Justifiably, the writer mentioned that in 2008, Pakistanis paid Rs1,783 billion as tax to the government treasury and this year they will have to deposit Rs17,815 billion into the public exchequer, with an increase of 899 per cent.
How the government lavishly spends is obvious. For instance, the salaries of parliamentarians have been increased at the rate of about 188 per cent. Similarly, the salaries, perks and privileges of bureaucrats have been increased manifold. How frequently do we hear that so many officers were promoted to the highest grade of 22? Along with their promotions increase many other benefits. The government is too big to manage the affairs of the nation. The dictum, small government rules best, must be kept in mind and strictly followed.
Lastly, there’s no need to construct large offices for government officers. The newly built huge white building as the commissioner's office on Mall Road is a sheer waste of public tax money. Couldn’t the ‘sahib’ sit in a modest office to exercise his authority? The government laments that people don’t pay taxes; the taxpayers shun paying taxes when they observe the government's wasteful attitude towards their hard-earned money.
The writer is a freelance columnist based in Lahore. He can be reached at: pinecitygmail.com