Few annual budgets of the developing countries have unusual and unpredictable features. All of them promise too much and deliver too little. They raise hopes among the poor and the deprived which often do not materialise. This happens as the demand is large, the resources small and the funds are not used prudently.

Unless the finance minister is exceedingly clever and daring and tries to live up to his words, things would continue the same way. The politicians satisfying the varied interests can seldom address public concerns effectively, and the two major, over-arching issues, particularly inflation and food security, are getting worse.

The vice-president of the World Bank, Praful Patel has cautioned the government against the rising inflation as the international economic situation gets worse. Crude oil prices and even the prices of palm oil keep shooting up adding to the high food inflation at home. He wanted the government to tame the inflation.

Following the election of February 18, there is hope of the international community coming to the financial help of Pakistan.

The US indicated it will step up assistance if we follow the democratic course. Saudi Arabia has offered $300 million dollars facility for oil import.. China is also reported to be considering $500 million assistance. China has always been helping Pakistan in its difficulties. More money could come and quicker if only our democratic process was not too slow. It took a long time to nominate the prime minister. The National Assembly took more than two months to meet and the provincial assemblies took a much longer time.

But violent incidents during the last week brought into question the competence of the elected government to cope with new problems. The problems are large and numerous and demand an urgent solution with the backing of the people.

Meanwhile, the urgent need of the country particularly of Karachi is electric power which has to be produced to meet the current shortage of 3000-4000 MW. And desperate efforts have to be made to extract coal for fuel as well as to promote other forms of energy.

The past government did not give enough attention to building power and water resources, hence we are suffering now. It is time to focus on $30 billion scheme for developing the five mega dams. Otherwise, our hope of rapid industrial development will be more of a dream.

Our developments needs are very large and much of the resources have to come from the external sources, either through borrowing or foreign investment. Borrowed money, particularly foreign money has to be carefully used, otherwise we may have to devalue the rupee which will inflate the debt burden. So, we cannot afford further devaluation of the rupee.

Instead the rupee has to be made strong through adequate fiscal and monetary measures and combating inflation at home vigorously, beginning with the food inflation.