'I Am Getting Involved In Politics'

My dear Countrymen, Assalam-o-Alekum,

Pakistan is once again at a historic juncture. October 2002 is fast approaching. And a new political era is going to commence. Some very important decisions have to be taken by me and by all of you. Genuine democracy, as I have been saying all along, which is the essence of democracy has to be introduced in Pakistan. It has to be placed on firm foundations. During the past two and a half years, we have done a lot, and in my opinion all the reforms and restructuring that we have done in various sectors will go waste if we do not cap it with true democracy.

I am addressing you today, because this is a historic moment. In the past also I have, on every occasion, taken the people of Pakistan into confidence whenever any important national issue has arisen. I am aware that you have never disappointed me in the past and will not let me down in future. I am never worried about the views of any group, or any individual or for that matter any organisation. But I am always deeply concerned about your views. When I have your support, I feel confident. Therefore, in the same spirit I am talking to you today. It is my firm belief that if the intentions are good and the desire is for the betterment of Pakistan, and the people of Pakistan are with us, then I am sure that God is with us too.

We started in October 1999 with a seven point agenda. I will briefly inform you how we have progressed on each of them;

Rebuild National Confidence and Morale; In my opinion we have a number of achievements in this regard. We can now see a sense of confidence among Pakistanis both at home and abroad. People now say that they are proud to be Pakistanis. With the passage of time, this will improve further.
Strengthen federation, remove inter-provincial disharmony and restore national cohesion. We have successes in this too. National cohesion has taken place. Inter- provincial disharmony has been removed to a large extent. We have to do more in this regard. But I am confident that our evenhanded policy towards the four provinces will further enhance interprovincial harmony.
Revive economy and restore investor confidence. We have indeed revived the economy and taken it out from a failed state situation. Investor confidence is gradually building up and will improve further.
Ensure law and order and dispense speedy justice. A lot remains to be done in this regard. I will dwell upon it a little later. What we have already done to achieve this; we have undertaken far-reaching reforms and restructuring. With the passage of time further improvements will come about.
Depoliticise State institutions: I have no doubt whatsoever that state institutions have been depoliticised we are strictly following the policy and nothing is being done on personal whims.
Devolution of power to the grass roots level: We have already done this. I will speak about it later. As you know already, the local government has been functioning since last August.
Lastly, ensuring swift and across the board accountability: We have done quite a lot in this regard. We can never be fully satisfied. But whatever we have done, no government in the past or even in the future will be able to match our performance.

Now keeping these seven points agenda as a base, an implementation plan, an implementation strategy has been given a practical shape. The focus of our development strategy has been on four issues: -

Economic revival
Bringing good governance
Poverty alleviation
Political restructuring

These four were extracted from the seven point agenda. You also know that the Supreme Court judgement, which was passed in favour of our government, gave us a three-year period for whatever reforms and restructuring that we wanted to do. The court also gave us the permission to make essential amendments to the constitution. We will uphold the decision of the Supreme Court in letter and spirit. Now, I would like to speak a little on the areas of focus:-

Economic Revival: First of all, what have we achieved? During these two and half years, what we have achieved was neither attempted by any previous government, neither was it planned by them, nor did they have any strategy nor any achievement on ground. First of, I would take the macro economic indicators and explain them to you.

The most important factor in this connection is fiscal deficit. We have managed to bring it down from 7% to 5.2%. This is very significant because it means that the gap between of our expenditure and our income has been greatly reduced. It has far reaching consequences on the domestic and external debt. This means we have reduced our fiscal deficit.

Secondly, foreign exchange reserves. We have increased the foreign exchange reserves from just 500 million dollars to 5.3 billion dollars by the Grace of Allah Almighty. On the issue of foreign debt, a lot of people have been saying that you are also borrowing and so were other government’s in the past, so what is the difference between your government and the previous governments? There is a world of difference.

Yes, we are borrowing. But our debt, which was 38 billion dollars in 1999, has not increased by a single paisa. As a matter of fact, it has reduced by a few hundred million dollars. This is our achievement. We are borrowing but not increasing our debt. We are also repaying our debt. And I would like to mention here that we have repaid almost all of our commercial debt that has heavy interest. Only 600 million dollars of commercial debt remains, meaning thereby that only two percent of our total debt is commercial debt. This is no mean achievement.

Some people say all this has happened because of 11th September incident and that we have not done anything extraordinary. I would like to tell you that foreign exchange reserves in July 2001 had crossed the three billion dollars mark, which is a new record for Pakistan. And since then, we have reached 5.3 billion dollars mark. I would like to say that during the past twelve years, previous governments had been receiving money.

On an average our debt has increased from 14 bullion dollars to 38 billion dollars during 12 years. So on an average every year, two billion dollars were coming in. That is why debt has increased. The previous governments were neither repaying debt, which in fact it was increasing and reached 38 billion dollars nor were the loans being utilized in accordance with any economic revival strategy or developmental plan. The difference is clear. Even after taking loans, we are making repayment and utilising them according to a developmental strategy and plan. The difference is great.

Now I would also like to talk about the Domestic Debt. When we assumed office in 1999, the domestic debt had been increasing at the rate of 15.5% over a period of 10 years and was almost 50% of the GDP. We contained this down ward slide but have also, you would be happy to learn reduced it by 6.2%in the last year. We have brought the figure down from 50s%of the GDP to 45% of the GDP.

Regarding the exchange rates, you must be aware that the rupee is today quite strong vis-à-vis the dollar. This is also due to the strength and success of our economic policies. Look at the Karachi Stock Exchange; its index has crossed the 1800 mark. It is being said today that the performance of Pakistan’s Stock Market is the best in the world. This is our achievement.

Look at the remittances. Last year, these increased from 750 million dollars to 900 million dollars. This was a good achievement, an increase of about 15 to 20 percent. This year our remittances have already crossed one point four billion dollars mark. And God willing, by the end of the year we will reach the two billion dollars mark.

So, our overall strategy to take the country out of the debt trap has been brought to the implementation mode. I am very happy that it is now being implemented. Our strategy has been to gain fiscal space, so that we could begin development work.
Secondly, we have money in our hands, which by the Grace of God is now with us. All donor agencies now have confidence in us. We have been given the PRGF facility. All Donor Agencies are lending us money and our own foreign exchange reserves have increased.

Now that we have the money, we have to utilize it on development projects, which can give quick returns. We need such returns in four to five years, which is more than our debt servicing liability. This strategy too by the Grace of God is moving successfully. The projects we have launched are Gomalzam Dam, Mirani Dam, Gwadar port, Coastal Highway, Rainee Canal, RBOD, Kacchi Canal project, raising of Mangla Dam. All these projects are aimed at giving us quick returns.

By the Grace of God our strategy of getting out of the debt trap and regaining national sovereignty, and honour and dignity is fully into its implementation phase. This we have achieved as a result of our macro economic reforms.

Coming on Good Governance. It is our second area of focus after Economic Revival. I will not go into details but touch upon some areas because many questions are asked.

First of all, as far as the law and order is concerned, I would like to say that there are no quick fix, short cut solutions. We are now trying to tackle the root cause of the poor law and order. I would like to briefly inform about the steps we are taking. We have taken steps to prevent internal violence. We have taken actions against external extremism and the atmosphere of intolerance. I would not like to repeat them but I would like to emphasize the concrete actions that the government intends to take.

First of all, in order to improve the law and order, so that there is no incident, you need to pre-empt the incident. How can you pre-empt. We can do that if our intelligence organizations have the capability to penetrate into organisations that indulge in violence. Therefore, our first task is to effectively train and equip our intelligence organizations. We are doing that. We are establishing a counter terrorism organization throughout the country. When it is established, it will be given good training and equipment. Our endeavour, therefore, is to control extremism through infiltration.

Secondly, we have to improve conditions of our law enforcement agencies so that they can perform their duties in a better manner. How we are going to do that? We have to improve the police and the rangers so that they can act as deterrence against those who intend to indulge in acts of extremism. In this respect, I am happy to say that this government has replaced the 140 year old Police Ordinance of 1861 by Police Ordinance of 2002. We have divided policing into three separate wings, i.e., watch and ward wing, investigation wing and prosecution wing. This step will make a lot of difference.

The watch and ward wing, consisting of the main police force, is being equipped on modern lines. At present, they neither have transport, nor communication facility, not even good accommodation. How can you expect good performance from them? We are now providing these. We have provided them funds and we are also getting assistance from abroad for their training. Their induction into service is being done as per criteria and on merit, not like in the past. Their training has been entirely rehashed. And finally we are also looking into the quality of their equipment and improving them.

Thirdly, investigation. Presently, we do not reach out to the culprits whenever any crime takes place because our investigation system is outmoded. We are developing the system. We should have investigative resources i.e. laboratories, expertise, and trained manpower so that we can reach out the and apprehend the culprit. We have received a lot of assistance in this field. I have asked for assistance from abroad. By the Grace of God we are making improvements.

And lastly, the judiciary. I am glad that the Chief Justice of Pakistan and the Chief Justices of the High Courts are making efforts to bring about internal improvements so that the judiciary, anti-terrorist courts and other courts can perform their duties in a better manner. I would like to say that law and order cannot be improved through cosmetic means i.e. by reshuffling some IGs and SPs. I am going into the root causes. We are improving police, improving investigation agencies. God willing there will be improvement in law and order with the passage of time. I am fully confident that this is the only course and there is no short cut.

Good governance. I come to education. I will not go into details. You know human resource development is one of our top priorities. We cannot progress unless we improve the quality of education. We are a developing nation and could not become a progressive, dynamic, developing nation. So, education is an act of root of improvement of the Pakistani society. What are we doing in this regard? We have addressed the education sector in its entirety.

How? First of all, no government looked into the problems of the Madrisa system. We have formulated a Madrisa strategy. I will not go into its details. Through the strategy, we have advised them about the subjects they should include in their Curriculum. And we will provide them with resources. We want to regulate their functioning like other educational institutions at the primary and secondary level. We want to improve our literacy level. We want to bring about a qualitative improvement in our education. We are improving our syllabus and curriculum. We are improving our educational system and are improving the teachers’ training as well.

Thirdly, we are introducing a technical scheme in Pakistan. This is being addressed at the primary and secondary level and then we have addressed higher education level as well. You will be glad to know that I have approved an improvement strategy for higher education. We have also made a lot of achievements in the health sector as well. I would like to say that we are concentrating on primary and secondary level health care.

Besides this, in the last, as for good governance, I would like to inform you about the health of the public sector Corporations. They were incurring losses worth billions of rupees. First of all, I would like to tell you about their position as it stood in 1999 and 2000. You will be glad to know that railways that was incurring loss in billions is no more in loss. PIA was at the brink of bankruptcy and we did not know what to do with it. You will be glad that it has started earning profit this year. I hope it will earn a profit of 2.5 billion rupees this year. We are planning to acquire new aircraft.

Steel Mills was also at the verge of collapse. This too is now earning profit. I have been told it has repaid its debt worth 2.5 billion rupees. Take the example of WAPDA. This too was about to collapse threatening to sink the country as well. When we took over, its annual revenues were 92 billion rupees, which have now soared to 175 billion rupees. Their electricity line losses have come down from 42 to 25 percent. In addition, we have provided 2 million new power connections during three years as compared to only one million during the last 10 years. WAPDA owes its achievement to the Army. This turn around has been brought about by the army.

Efforts are also being made to bring about a turn around in PIA. We have initiated a number of steps and God willing, further improvement will soon be visible. These were our achievements in good governance, in the field of education, law and order and improvement in the health of government corporations.

Now I am coming towards a complicated but very important subject of poverty alleviation. What are our achievements in poverty alleviation and what we intend to do. This is my prime concern. The question of poverty alleviation agitates me. My heart weeps at the plight of the poor but I feel sorry when someone asks me what I have done for the common man. I want to clearly tell you what our plan is, what we have achieved and what we cannot. The question is what to do for the common man, how to alleviate poverty. This always agitates my mind. If it were possible, I would go to every poor man, embrace him and redress his grievances. I want to do this. But the question arises how to redress this problem. To me there are three methods for this and there is no fourth one. Can I provide subsistence to 140 million people of Pakistan? How? That is not possible.

We have to judge where is poverty? First you have to address it in the rural area and this can be done through agriculture and we are addressing the very sector of agriculture to eradicate it. I will not go into the details you know it well.

The other is the urban area the cities and towns. In these areas poverty exists due to joblessness. How to address it? We thought information technology is the answer as we have the resources and the infrastructure and we are doing a lot to address issue through IT. The third thing labour needs jobs. This can be achieved through revival of Industry and let us see what we havedone. First we started the Khushal Pakistan Project.

Thousand of jobs are being generated by the developmental project that we are launching which are in addition to the employment in agriculture. We have so far spent twenty three billion rupees on the Khushal Pakistan Project and every year are giving billions of rupees to the provinces in this regard they launch small schemes and projects which result in job generation. I know that there are roughly around five thousand ongoing projects in the country and every year approximately five hundred thousand people would gain employment as a result of these schemes. We have done this; no one did it before us.

Talking of factories a number of them were closed and in order to revive them we established the CIRC organisation. I am happy to note that one hundred and eighty five factories have been revived so far and thousands of jobs generated. In addition to this the development projects which I do not want to repeat have resulted in jobs for thousands of people and as they are going to gain speed because they are four to five year projects all eight or nine that I have enumerated. This is our achievement.