GHABRANA NAHI

WHY PTI FAILED
After 2 years in government, there is no doubt that PTI has miserably failed on the promises it made before elections 2018. Most Pakistan is knew that the PTI leadership would fail to deliver.

Why was it bound to fail. That’s the question. There are 3 main reasons – poor leadership, incompetent team and unrealistic plan. Let’s analyse in detail.

Starting with the leader himself. Apart from his cricketing abilities and Shaukat Khanum Hospital, Kaptaan had never worked a single day in any job or business of his own. As such he had no understanding of business dynamics less to talk of national economic challenges. At best he knew the problems but little in terms of the solutions. If someone has not run a small office and is suddenly entrusted to run the premiership of the country, disaster will be the natural outcome.

We now come to the team selected by the PM. If the PM does not have comprehension of the multiple problems facing the country, his ability to pick the right team will only be limited. Contrary to general thinking, Pti never had the quality of people in its ranks. The choices were limited to begin with. With the likes of Gandapur, Faisal Vawda, Murad Saeed, Sheheryar Afridi, and others, there was never any hope of quality delivery. Add to this, the poor quality of the chief ministers – Usman Buzdar & Mahmood Khan. To round up the team, we have a matric pass as education minister in KPK and an FA pass as Governor in Sindh.

The third reason for the failure and perhaps the most important was the lack of preparation and understanding of the many economic, foreign policy and governance challenges facing the country. The entire economic plan was based on simplistic & unrealistic assumptions such as:

1. Khan is sincere and people trust him. Therefore once in power, people will line up to pay taxes in numbers never seen before. According to the plan, tax revenue was to increase from around Rs 4000 billion to 8000 billion in 2 years. Guess where we are after 2 years – still at around 4000 billion where PMLN left in 2018 ( PML(N) doubled tax revenue collection in its 5 years)

2. The plan also assumed there is corruption of Rs 12 billion taking place on a daily basis. “Once Khan is in power, there will be no corruption.” As such Rs 12 billion will be added to national treasury on a daily basis. Guess how much has been saved over 2 years – ZERO. In fact according to Transparency International, Pakistan’s corruption ranking has worsened in last 2 years.

3.The plan also assumed that money laundering to the tune of 10 billion dollars is taking place on annual basis. This will be saved & added to the foreign exchange reserves. Result after 2 years – No evidence of money laundering taking place – certainly not visible in reserves.

4.Finally Khan also promised to bring back the famous 200 billion dollars stashed outside Pakistan and that will resolve all our problems. Guess how many dollars have been brought back in 2 years – ZERO.

With such a poor leader, incompetent team and rudderless plan, the failure on a massive scale was to be the only outcome. After 2 years, we have more corruption, more unemployment, more poverty, unprecedented price increases, negative growth, poor governance, more scams (Sugar, Wheat, Petrol, etc).

If the last 2 years are any guide, the next 3 are likely to be even worse. Hopefully though, we will be saved from the misery much sooner than 2023. For now the dream of Naya Pakistan is dead and buried.