Pakistan's real problem is very poor institutions - not political

[Developereo]

Leave politics out. IK knew bajwa is bringing him in power and as long as IK praised Bajwa and Army, he remained in power. IK is party to Bajwa plan so lets not go there.

Imran Khan knew the proper niceties to say to placate Bajwa -- until he didn't. Imran Khan had his faults, ego being one of them, but he is only human and it was unreasonable to expect one man to fix 70 years of rot by waving a magic wand. I think people, including myself, are sometimes too harsh on him. He has a good heart and truly cares for Pakistan, which puts him head and shoulders above the mafia families.

Prcctical solution ?

No short cuts, unfortunately. Seventy years of rot has a lot of inertia, simple physics, and only an equally massive force can stop that inertia.

The only Pakistani institution that has the discipline and power is the military. The corrupt civilian elite will not go quietly or nicely.

Will the public blame itself and mend its ways so the people in power start to see a change they cant handle ? So far public is aligned with corruption, sifarish, bribery- for personal gains.

The public will fall in line when it sees high profile politicians and elite being held accountable. When the ordinary person sees that crime doesn't pay, and that hard work does, they will adapt accordingly, as people do in the West.

 

[fitpOsitive]

Why is every institution/idara in Pakistan so EXTREMELY weak? (An unfunny joke in straight forward terms)

There's a general trend where they are so unprofessional with plenty of unskilled/unqualified workers that you can hardly even think anyone takes anything serious in this country.

This can be seen across minor irrelevant institutions for everyday tasks, to very important ones related to national security or economy!

Everyone pins blame on single individuals or political events but I believe the above is the core fundamental issue for why this country is stagnant (collapsing)

There's no sense of professionalism or high standard (in relation to other countries national institutes) in how they operate - everything is done hastily, lazily, rushed and to a very poor standard with no attention to detail. You can notice in small stuff like their media releases. Poor English, spokesperson won't have a clue of what he is saying himself, or poor quality media.

PAKISTAN SHOULD SERIOUSLY WORK WITH FRIENDLY COUNTRIES LIKE TURKEY & CHINA AND REVAMP NATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND NEW TRAINING URGENTLY.


@Signalian
@RescueRanger
@_NOBODY_
@Panzerkiel
@Oscar
@Falcon26

Lack of accountability, political Interventions, lack of motivation and direction, lack funds, posting of foreign agents and nationals.
Ham qom Hain hi NAHI.

 

[FuturePAF]

My uncle had problem with NADRA and with some business he also said pak is like stuck in old ages, no sane person would waste time there.

Whole country is like bunch of uncles at a tea gathering doing whatever lazy stuff but they call it idara

ZERO PROFESSIONALISM, ZERO STANDARDS. They flex non achievements. He say India will **** them up in few decades.

Just listen to AQ Khan, a Mohsin-e-Pakistan (especially at 4:05 ), sitting on the sidewalk next to the street telling it like it is. We are doing to one resident of the Bani Gala neighborhood as we are to another resident of that neighborhood. (AQ Khan use to live in the Bani Gala neighborhood)

Now consider that the cream of the crop of India stay in India to go to IIT, then either work in their country or go abroad to work their way up in all manner of industries or to gain experience and come back to India.

While the best and brightest of Pakistan go abroad with no real plan, by and large, to return for the sake of work. people like AQ Khan get thrown under the bus to protect the nation’s reputation. Consider all major foreign policy fronts are limited, why try so hard, and get good at the basic, a stable nation protecting its border and focusing on global trade.

Stop driving away the brightest minds. We need to stop looking for shortcuts (that are meant to protect uncompetitive and generally under of more likely unproductive Elite capture).

Look at what happened to Europe in the last 100 years. Innovators in all industries, now relatively barely a mention in new industries or even global culture. 100 years ago, Europe was huge in culture, now western culture is dominated by Hollywood. Only new pharmaceuticals is what I notice. Drugs like wright loss Ozempic are making some eueopeans wealthy, but by not being competitive to keep talent, Europe is becoming a backwater.

A French professional I know says that people in France don’t want to work, but in my opinion, people don’t want to work uphill in an uncompetitive market, hence the people are not conceding while the European pie is getting smaller.

Lesson must be retain the talent and grow the pie. Put the best and brightest to work in Pakistan. Reorient society to keep them, and catch-up when we have at least 30 years of a demographic dividend to build upon wisely if done right.

 

[Orpheus]

So after go thru 5 pages of comment
FuturePaf comment is best ,if properly implemented on the lines on how the military is run. But who will enforce it & have patience for it to work.
Another option is to run institutions like Motorway police, even though they run massive losses
Another option is privatize everything & have people like Malik Riaz run things. But then you would have “oligarchs “ and income gaps with rising poverty
The last option would be to lease cities like Karachi/Hub/Gwader/Lahore/Multan/Peshawar similar to what Hong Kong model & that would cause massive investment with improved socioeconomic indicators but would eventually be used by foreign powers to wedge it against pakistan in 50 yrs.
The option of improving institutions & have military run it to bring efficiency only caused more problems & anger against military (Ayub/Zia/Misharraf era) which saw great strides in our economy but then saw all those success washed away in subsequent decade.
So what is the solution?

 

[Bengal71]

Pakistan's real problem is it's people, because if people institutions are weak. Exactly the same in BD too. Our countries are bad because we are bad.

 

[Olympus81]

Proposed solution, in order of priority

1. Military leadership voluntarily withdraw from activities outside their constitutional scope. (Accountability of the leadership is a pipe dream)

2. Some semblance of accountability of bureaucracy and politicians.

3. Focus on education. From schooling system to universities. The system is broken to the extreme.

4. Focus on meritocracy. Not an overnight job, but some semblance of it will go a long way. Qualifications and experience matter more than what institution one is affiliated with.

5. Focus on economy. Structural reforms so that it becomes more investment friendly. Tax on real estate, retail, agriculture sector. Cracking down on smuggling. Formalize and digitizing the economy.

6. Reducing defense budget by 30% in USD terms to make way for other social projects. The threat perception that this paranoid state has is exaggerated by 10x.

7. Fixing the electoral system. EVM machines, punishing the perpetrators trying to engineer elections (pipe dream again).

8. Pakistanis should stop multiplying at such a rapid pace as it strains the country’s resources.

9. 18th amendment was a good step. But the provinces need to take care of their finances rather than relying on the federal government.

 

[nahtanbob]

Public education system in Pakistan is a complete disaster, especially in rural areas where so-called schools don't even exist physically but 'teachers' and 'administrators' collect salaries. Unfortunately, these poor people are so beaten down by the system of feudals, local strongmen, and their benefactors up the power ladder, that they can do nothing about it. They see their children suffer from malnutrition, stuck in the lowest socioeconomic rung for generations, and trapped in the system. The urban or middle class can run away to foreign lands but these poorest people are stuck for generations.

if the literacy rate is 58% it is not bad. But if is lower it is a problem

 

[Developereo]

if the literacy rate is 58% it is not bad. But if is lower it is a problem

I don't know how that 58% is calculated; I suspect very loosely. Learning how to read or write at a basic level may get you that 'literacy' tick but it won't get you far in the modern world.

When I talk about 'education', I am talking about the big picture. How many world class universities? how many world quality STEM graduates per year per capita? how many scientific publications cited internationally? etc, etc.

Then you need the upstream and downstream ecosystems: a primary and secondary school system feeding quality candidates, and an industrial and occupational ecosystem to absorb the graduates towards productive outlets.

This is not rocket science: the countries that understand this reality are progressing, those that don't are languishing or sliding backwards.

P.S. This recent post of mine in another thread is apropos.

Pakistan's economic problems are based in this fundamental fact:

Unless one has a natural-resource-based economy, any modern economy requires an educated workforce and a thriving middle class. Both these conditions are anathema to an oligarchy: educated people think too much and a thriving middle class has time and resources to act on those thoughts.

Imran Khan came in starry-eyed with visions of bringing Pakistan into the modern world, but he failed due to a combination of ego (nobody's perfect), a support team that redefined the word 'incompetent' to a whole new level, and a fatal underestimation of the systemic rot. The oligarchy is fully supported by the military elite and both, in turn, are solidly backed by their foreign masters.

I am not one of those overseas Pakistanis (not talking about the Professor) who exhort local Pakistanis to rise up in rebellion, taunting them that they deserve the government if they don't act. Such taunts, especially from people sitting comfortably in the West, require a degree of callous cynicism that I do not possess, thankfully.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Japanese were actually brought in, but the public didn’t want to change its ways.

I recall Japs were even called in to change traffic system but with animals carts, poorly maintained vehicles on road, and public not respecting traffic laws and traffic police, they went back without making any change.3

Has there been any study if the policeman trained by the army is better than the policeman trained by the police.

Don't need one.
Look at the Assam Rifles.
Politeness forbids me from naming their own horrible examples, who spend their time in Karachi proving that this is pointless.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Till the time Pakistanis will be high on coolaid of "good intentions", it's never gonna evolve. They have same feelings for all the goofups done by Imran with Pakistan's international relations and fuel-energy subsidies.

Your military elites needed to give some time for democracy to flourish. Not even 10 years from the independence and your military elites started thinking that oh no "it's not gonna work".

They created a blockade on a natural flowing river of democracy . Some people built mansions and huts in that land which was left behind by the drying river. Now you can not open the floodgates because it will hurt the people living in the dried river bed.

Ultimately, none of our business.

 

[Zarvan]

Why is every institution/idara in Pakistan so EXTREMELY weak? (An unfunny joke in straight forward terms)

There's a general trend where they are so unprofessional with plenty of unskilled/unqualified workers that you can hardly even think anyone takes anything serious in this country.

This can be seen across minor irrelevant institutions for everyday tasks, to very important ones related to national security or economy!

Everyone pins blame on single individuals or political events but I believe the above is the core fundamental issue for why this country is stagnant (collapsing)

There's no sense of professionalism or high standard (in relation to other countries national institutes) in how they operate - everything is done hastily, lazily, rushed and to a very poor standard with no attention to detail. You can notice in small stuff like their media releases. Poor English, spokesperson won't have a clue of what he is saying himself, or poor quality media.

PAKISTAN SHOULD SERIOUSLY WORK WITH FRIENDLY COUNTRIES LIKE TURKEY & CHINA AND REVAMP NATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND NEW TRAINING URGENTLY.


@Signalian
@RescueRanger
@_NOBODY_
@Panzerkiel
@Oscar
@Falcon26

Institutions are weak due to corrupt politicians and even more troublesome establishment. Angels don't come down to build institutions. Same humans do and if they are corrupt to the core no change can come

 

[Joe Shearer]

Find one and inform us.

Irrespective, the CSS officers training academy should be upgraded to set highest standards.

Read the Dharma Vira Commission report, if you can get your hands on it.
As long as bureaucrats and policemen are subject to transfer at the wishes of politicians, as long as their careers depend on those creatures, you will not get a principled bureaucrat or a policeman. Oh, and as long as they are not accountable to human rights commissions on a formal, structured basis.

 

[Greenhawk]

Poor institutions are byproduct of a dysfunctional state, it has everything to do with political chaos since Independence.

We have no directions at all.

 

[FuturePAF]

So after go thru 5 pages of comment
FuturePaf comment is best ,if properly implemented on the lines on how the military is run. But who will enforce it & have patience for it to work.
Another option is to run institutions like Motorway police, even though they run massive losses
Another option is privatize everything & have people like Malik Riaz run things. But then you would have “oligarchs “ and income gaps with rising poverty
The last option would be to lease cities like Karachi/Hub/Gwader/Lahore/Multan/Peshawar similar to what Hong Kong model & that would cause massive investment with improved socioeconomic indicators but would eventually be used by foreign powers to wedge it against pakistan in 50 yrs.
The option of improving institutions & have military run it to bring efficiency only caused more problems & anger against military (Ayub/Zia/Misharraf era) which saw great strides in our economy but then saw all those success washed away in subsequent decade.
So what is the solution?

Thanks

We (civilians) need to learn to run our own institutions correctly. I always point to Poland. It came out of communist, which Pakistan has been under a similar system but a more simple medieval version of.

Polish SMEs (or startups) allowed the most talented to shine, and they worked their way up. As in business we need to clear the way for related people in politics to grow naturally from local positions.

So small business people and small politicians moving up on merit. That is a long term solution. A change needs to come that sweeps away the control of major industries and makes way for newcomers like old trees and young trees, after a forest fire.




In the short term though, we need to study what worked in places like Poland, to bridge the gap.

 

[Peregrine]

I think the problem with personal connections and bribery for public sector positions can be solved.

In Norway forexample, there are vast network of control institutions. These instituions are again controlled by other institutions.

Now, its extremely cruicial that these control institutions are not plagued by the same sifarish bribery problems.

Another pivotal element is the judiciary. IMO a competent & corruption free judiciary is by far the most important institution in any modern nation state. The judiciary must be fuctional in order to regulate parliament members and law enforcement.

If judiciary is compromised then rest of the institutions will fall one by one. Also for the judiciary to function they have to be free from threat of personal harm.

And finally you need a media that also play its role as regulating power by asking tough questions and even shaming corrupt and violent individuals and their families.