Stand against corporate governance and economic growth.

Byline: Arooj Asghar

Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development in Pakistan. The present condition of governance in Pakistan is not satisfactory. There are many problems stimulate as barriers for good governance. To ensure sound local development, action should be taken to work towards achieving good governance. Considering Pakistan's history of politics, the country is still struggling to improve in terms of political stability and governance. Unfortunately, development has not been stable, mainly due to political will and commitment. Democracy and governance in Pakistan, still plagued by corruption, outdated laws, abuse of human rights, the absence of rule of law, non-accountability, and heavy politicization of most of the government institutions including the lower judicial system.

It is observed that we need strong political leadership with a commitment to fight against deep-rooted corruption, non-accountability, non-transparency and inefficiency is imperative for establishing good governance and to ensure sustainable development.Pakistan, a typical developing country in South Asia in terms of a large population, low per capita income, the persistent trade deficit and an economy dominated by agriculture has increasingly moved towards the market-based economy as a result of receiving assistance under structural adjustment programs of the World Bank, IMF, and other donor nations. Despite these foreign assistance, poor governance remains a big challenge for Pakistan. It is observed that despite internal and external factors such as politics, public pressure and donor country's conditions on reform, Pakistan so far couldn't move towards good governance and to a sustainable development program.

The shift towards good governance needs to pick up speed in coming years. It has been almost 70 years, Pakistan got its independence, but yet it did not achieve any significant result in corporate governance. The core challenge lies in developing a governance model that fits the current economic and political condition of the country. The other major bottlenecks are its slow non-transparent, bureaucratic structure, corruption in public offices which put Pakistan in Transparency International's top corrupt list of nations but also raise the cost of living in the country.

Economic growth of a country depends on many factors, key among those factors is adherence to the rule of law by a...