Individuals vs institutions

This refers to the article, ‘Individuals vs institutions’ (June 6) by Babar Sattar. The bright young ‘legal eagle’ in his well-written article has very intelligently pointed to a major malady of our political landscape. The writer has very correctly stated that the preference of building an individual image over institutions is the root cause of all our failures in building a nation. Be it the Sharif brothers’ obsession with building motorways, metros and other infrastructure or Imran Khan’s obsession with rigging in elections, good governance etc, the objective is the same: personal glorification by building monuments to their glorious rule. The Sharifs and their economic team either have no clue about economic priorities or they are consciously ignoring them in pursuit of their own fancy projects.
Basic economic common sense tells us that necessities like health, education, energy and services like power, gas and perhaps simple and inexpensive transport by improving the existing transport facilities have primary importance. Metro buses, tubes and bullet trains are very good but only when you have already provided all other basic services and facilities to people. Developed countries, which we blindly mimic, have all graduated from first providing all basic necessities and services to people. That said, the writer is not reinventing the wheel when he says that the best way for a nation to develop is to develop its institutions. Institutions, if built solidly, will outlive any individual.
Zaheer Ahmed
Islamabad