Corruption, commitment, competence, compassion, courage.

Byline: Dr Farid A Malik

In December 1979 when I arrived in Arizona for graduate studies, I came to know about the five C's of the state: Copper, Cattle, Citrus, Cotton, Climate. While I enjoyed the climate, I had the chance to work on copper. Later on, two more C's were added: Cactus, Canyons. The Grand Canyon state now has seven C's to market its economy. While most of the copper has been mined, climate has attracted phenomenal growth. As a result of this surge Phoenix is one of the fastest growing cities in the United States.

In the recently held conference on 'Economic Diplomacy' the Prime Minister (PM) talked about corruption, commitment, compassion while competence and courage was not highlighted. The crusade against corruption is commendable and should continue unabated with courage but without competence there would be limited long term gains. In the last forty years (1977 to 2017) most civilian institutions have ceased to function. There is an institutional collapse; those who are honest are not competent while the dishonest ones deliver only for personal gains. While corruption rules, overall there is total lack of competence, compassion and courage, in other words it is a big mess.

The PM talked about going to IMF for loans followed by signing treaties like SEATO and CENTO. Till October 1958 the country was debt free, everyone lived within means, the focus was on nation building based on human development. After ten years of his misrule when the dictator decided to celebrate his decade of progress the have nots decided to hit back. It was a mini revolution that toppled the usurper who was forced to resign in March 1969 thus the so called golden period for some while the majority suffered came to an end.

The late Air Marshal Asghar Khan who build the Pakistan Air Force into a formidable force used to say that the intelligence agencies in the country know more about us than we are aware of our self, up to date files are kept, to be used at the appropriate time. It is always easy to deal with the corrupt as the collected data is usually linked to the gathered information against them.

In the 1970 elections Dr. Mubashir Hasan secured the highest number of votes and was appointed Finance Minister in Bhutto's cabinet. In his own words, 'We thought our orders would be implemented, but they were not.' Dr. Sahib eventually resigned and never contested again. Bhutto and his team used their competence and courage to deliver change. It is...