Re: A critical look at the Pak economy
Zakk Dubai based companies are hardly your example of a state run organization. They're a tiny country with a huge surplus of resources, who have foreigners running these companies as basically asset management. Etisalat doesnt typify a state organization.
Thats a good thing, given how corrupt our government has always been, and will be for the foreseeable future. Is there any doubt that for every PTCL and PSO there are a hundred PIAs in Pakistan? Take the port authorities, a prime example of something that should be privatized simply to spare the people from suffering from a corrupt, inefficient state function where they have to pay bribes to every man in the command chain, starting from the janitor.
Furthermore to say that something is not loss-making means exactly nothing, since it doesnt preclude the fact that something could be better still and provide better services to consumers.
If PTV can be made profitable, do you figure we dont need all those private channels after that?
Regulation is not equal to state ownership, anti-trust laws etc can keep resources fairly in the private sector without proposing a view where "Private sector is good in producing those commodities, which are low technology and require small capital investments." and the government does the rest.
FYI all semi-decent high-technology enterprizes in Pakistan, barring defence industries, are private. Some, such as the cellphone networks and the broadband/ WiFi services require significant investment, and the state's equivalent companies were performing abysmally in the same field. ALL decent hospitals in Pakistan are private for good reason. Infact this is not a Pakistan specific thing, I dont know any low-tech OR high-tech commodity that is not better produced and better innovated in the private sector anywhere in the world.
rav we are getting into a broader discussion on the role of govt and what you and I see as its core role. I don't claim the state can ever compete with private enterprise and inn innovation and efficiency. However it is ultimately state owned organizations that have to cover for unregulated market frces (Qabzas would be a better way of describing them in a pak context) . So when the Pak govt has to evacuate Pakistanis in kuwait it uses PIA, when it needs to ensure flour is sold at the right price it uses the utility store corporation. In Pakistan whats happened is the state run enterprises are badly run, and regulatory organisations are notorously inept and politicised.. has led to a generation of crony capitalists.