Daily Times: Pakistan fires chief economist because he wouldn't go along with fudged numbers

EDITORIAL: The poverty of thought

General Pervez Musharraf and his civilian sidekicks want to “re-brand” Pakistan. Nothing wrong with that per se, we concede. But improving the image should not lead to hiding facts or fudging them. Pakistan is beset with many ills, as are most other states and societies, therefore every effort must be spared to improve the situation. But it ill becomes a government to conjure up a rosy picture of welfare when many people are clearly hurting. Worse, to penalise those who say that the truth is different. Take the case of poverty alleviation. The government has been insisting, for at least three years now, that the relative numbers of the “poor” in this country are declining dramatically. But independent economists have been shaking their heads at this claim and pointing to how the figures are being fudged. The problem stems from the fact that most independent economists remain unimpressed with the impact of high growth rates in two years or so. They have asked the basic — and legitimate — question of whether these impressive growth figures have dramatically translated into alleviating poverty. Yes, the rate of growth of poverty may have declined, but this is a far cry from saying that the level of impoverishment has radically fallen. If the growth has not alleviated poverty, goes the argument, then we need to redefine the entire concept and also cast another glance at the structural anomalies that might hinder the poor from benefiting from the high tide of growth in these “propitious times”.

Now we learn that the government’s chief economist has been shunted aside and given another brief because he differed with the image-builders on poverty reduction and growth figures. Pervaiz Tahir, says the Planning Division secretary, Akram Malik, may have been the country’s chief economist but he was no expert in calculating poverty figures. Mr Malik says experts from the UNDP, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have also corroborated the government’s claim that poverty has been reduced by 10 percent during 2001-05. Presumably, Mr Tahir was using a methodology not to the liking of the government, or maybe the chief economist did not know his mathematics and statistics. Mr Tahir, when contacted by the media, said the entire Planning Commission knew his views on the issue.

The fact is that Mr Tahir did not want to be party to an exercise in dissembling. The chief economist did not attend the meetings of the committee headed by the Planning and Development secretary and informed his deputy that the poverty reduction figures being finalised by the government were “impossible”. He also stayed away from the meeting of the Annual Plan Coordination Committee (APCC) because the meeting agenda did not include the mandatory Economy Paper. Mr Tahir was also absent from the NEC meeting days ahead of the budget speech.

Such is the government’s obsession with presenting “Shining Pakistan” and such is its abhorrence of any comment or critique on this issue that it is prepared to do everything to hide its warts and all. Little wonder then that it has lost all credibility. In this country, we have faced the problem of availability of data for decades; now we have a bigger problem and a bigger question to address: when and where data is available, we cannot trust its integrity. When the national interest is subordinated to the government’s interest, how can Pakistan shine? *