It is not how much energy we produce, what matters is how we use it. The same goes for the population in the country. Similarly it is not the how much aid we get as long as we can use it in an efficient manner to produce wealth. President Zardari wants $100 billion from the Friends of Democratic Pakistan to pull us out of poverty without correcting the initial causes of pushing Pakistan into the present state. It is not clear what Pakistan would do with so much cash. Every other day some foreign agency is reported to give loans to improve our social structure and governance. I think some concrete examples need to be highlighted to explain my point.

We visited Dushanbe, Tajikistan in 2002 to face hours of loadshedding. Tajikistan has surplus energy and ready to export electricity yet Tajiks were faced with incompetence and poor distribution system. On the other hand China is establishing one power plant, mainly coal fired, every week for a long time. These new power plants are environmentally friendlier as well. If Pakistan had surplus of electricity, as we did few years’ back we only thought of exporting it and not using it for more productive avenues.

Many people complain of over population in Pakistan and attribute that with underdevelopment. May I remind them that in that case Balochistan would have been the richest part of Pakistan but it is the reverse. Instead of using our human resource for more productive ventures all we have achieved is to export it. Our exported manpower is a useful source of earning foreign exchange. Pakistan receives $9 billion every year from our workers abroad and is an important source of keeping Pakistan afloat.

The world has pumped $8.8 billion into East Timor since 1999 independence, which comes to $8000 per head. However the country is worse than before. It is estimated that just 10% of $5.2 billion actually came to E Timor. While on security $3 billion has been spent without much to show on the ground (Little to show for billions spent in East Timor. AP. The News BusinessNews. September 13, 2009). Then there is the example of the first black and to add slave ruled independent country in Latin American (January 1, 1804) the Republic of Haiti. After British and French invasions of the country the American sent in the marines to ‘bring peace’ to the country. In fact the Americans were safeguarding their economic interest and were rulers of the country from 1915 to 1934. The country was again invaded by US in 1994. Haiti remains the poorest and the most unstable country in Latin America. The UN (actually American) efforts to reintroduce democracy, peace, and prosperity in the country have miserably failed despite intake of huge quantities of financial inputs. Similar stories come from many African countries where development has been reversed since independence due to lack of appropriate human resource and institutions.

The role of the institutions is crucial for development of nations. We deliberately trashed the institutions, which we inherited. PIA has the credit of developing more than ten airlines in the Middle East and Far East and was once in the top ten airlines. During the times of late President ZA Bhutto indiscriminate employment was given to PPP loyalists. His daughter repeated the process when she twice came into power. Even Nawaz Sharif used PIA for his loyalists during his second stint as PM. The result has been bankruptcy of what was one the finest the airline in the world. Take for example the Mughalpura railway workshop half of which had electricity in 1882. This workshop was the largest in Asia. Today we have to import railway engines and bogies from China! Again in 1882 Punjab University was created and became the best in Asia. Today the university is little more than a glorified madrassa producing next generation of extremists. I could go no endlessly but we all know that we are governed by criminals and dakats while the world is pumping in aid/loans so that our governance can improve. Aid for social sector is an old story and it failed every time. Why should it succeed now? It is a miracle that our higher justice system was saved by the people of Pakistan and not the rulers who tried their best to destroy it and aid from the World Bank only produced a more compliant judiciary. The justice system improved without any aid/loan from abroad.

This brings me to the Kerry-Lugar Bill worth $1.5 billion annually for the next five years (70% will never reach Pakistan). According to Hussain Haqqani the ‘American ambassador to US’ the conditionalities put in the K-L Bill is for the American government and not Pakistan (Congress put conditions on US in Kerry-Lugar Bill: Haqqani. The News. September 30, 2009). He was further thrilled that the Bill has not said any thing about our nukes (US bill places no curbs on Pak nukes: Haqqani. The News. October 2, 2009). I thought the professor was more intelligent than giving such a stupid statement.

The Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act 2009 alias Kerry-Lugar Bill should have been put across during Ayub Khan times with more stringent conditionalities. The Americans have been doling out money to Pakistan since 1950s have now realised that the Pakistani administration has been too smart in using the American funds, which never reached the target population. US aid in the past was used as a bribe for the people in power. Then there was the chronic problem of coups each of which was exploited for American interest but put the Pakistani democracy back many decades. On the other hand the government cannot fulfil the conditionalities since successive governments for their self-interest have wrecked the institutions. We should welcome the American conditionalities with open arms. Perhaps this may set our priorities in the right direction. Here I do not agree with many authors writing in the newspapers who make this Bill an ego issue. The underlying issue is that this time the Americans refuse to allow the aid to be consumed (eaten) by few people at the top and that is most unfair (Jillani, Anees. The price of aid. Dawn. September 30, 2009; Amir, Ayaz. Kerry-Lugar: bill or document of surrender? The News. October 2, 2009; Saleem, Farrukh. Kerry-Lugar. The News. October 4, 2009).

I wish the K-L Bill had also addressed the issue of more than 100 federal ministers each costing us Rs 100,000 per day and the cost of foreign trips of the President and the Prime Minister (Hassan, Masood. Gilded lives. The News. October 4, 2009).

Another Pakistani ego issue is of appointment of head of task force on education of Sir Michael Barber by the UK government. Sir Michael was rewarded for reforming the British schooling system (Mustafa, Zubeida. And now the Barber touch. Dawn. September 30, 2009).

The aid giving countries have to develop a different scientific criteria if they seriously want to help the poor countries which should be based on the inherent capacity of the human resource backed by its institutions to use the aid in a competent manner. Without strong institutions aid as a dole out only adds to our debt (Nishtar, Sania. Is aid the answer? The News. September 28, 2009). Aid is a political leaver used by the aid giving country. I shall not give the example of development of North America, Australia, or New Zealand where criminals and rejects were sent from all over Europe. China is nearer home relevant to Pakistan and is a recent phenomena. We have been told endless lies about how bad the Chinese are. The strong point of China was its thinking leadership. In 1978 China decided to open its economy. The Chinese path to progress had started much earlier when they set their priorities in knowledge. By 1989 they had one 5 star hotel in Beijing. By 1992 one five star hotel was being built every week. The Beijing Lhasa railway is an engineering marvel. The development in case of China was not a sudden outpouring of development work but was backed by years of hard work in various fields. Most significant fact was that they did not get financial aid from the World Bank or IMF or any other foreign agency. Nor did their leaders have foreign bank accounts or properties in Dubai or UK or US or Spain. There is no shortcut to success.