PM’s media grouse
The prime minister has statedly changed his media aides. The reason: according to a press report, he was unhappy with the outgoing team for not telling the people effectively what he was doing for them. But the people need no telling. Their personal experiences, not official press releases, are their guide. And those are palpably bitter. Their testing ground is the bazaar.
Routinely, the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet, on whose meeting he presides, expresses satisfaction over the “stability” of prices of essential commodities in the market. But if he visits the bazaar incognito any day, that will serve him an eye-opener. Be it flour, edible oil, ghee, tea or sugar; you just name it and the price of every essential commodity has gone up manifold. Even vegetables and pulses are selling at prices not witnessed in the bazaar before. Meat has become a rich man’s diet and a poor man’s luxury. And the people complain the utilities bills are neatly gobbling up their earnings’ big chunks.
The prime minister has been around for nearly six years, handling this nation’s finances. Nobody can deny he has set the nation’s economy aright. Nor can he deny he has dispensed squalor, poverty and joblessness to the nation in equal measure. The facts are too compelling. On his watch, a miniscule minority of the haves is flourishing and flourishing, and a surging sea of the have-nots is waxing and waxing. He has long been promising the masses the fruits of his economic reforms. But that promise has kept eluding them so far.
True, industry has seen tremendous investment. But that has brought more automation to the industry. It has increased the industrial productivity. But it has not produced more jobs. Rather, it has reduced them. True, he is pumping huge sums in agriculture in farming loans and infrastructure development. But it has brought no cheer to the poor peasantry’s life. Their incomes are being cleanly wiped out by spiraling prices of farming inputs and basic needs. And throughout the country, unemployment is running riot. Graduates in thousands are roaming about on the roads in search of non-existent jobs.And the ranks of the illiterate unemployed are swelling by leaps and bounds.
The street is indeed unhappy with him. He is the country’s chief executive. Yet, he has not bothered to visit Balochistan even once during these days when the province is going through some difficult times. Could he imagine the psychological impact of such a visit? It would have given a strong message to the province’s people that he cares for them, apart from boosting the security forces’ morale and daunting the miscreants.
He has not even cared to call a meeting of the chief ministers and their top security officials to plan and execute a coordinated and punchy law-enforcement drive when miscreants have also targeted installations in Punjab and Sindh. A contented citizenry, he must understand, needs no press release to be impressed and convinced. And not even hundreds of press releases would do if it is discontented and disaffected. He may not have been told that the nightly telecast of his meetings with his ministers by the state broadcaster has become a butt of jokes on the street. Where do the ministers do not meet their prime minister and where do they do not talk of state matters when they meet, the street asks.
Source: Frontier Post
Date:2/13/2005
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