The prime minister’s claim of success in steering the nation from a situation of economic meltdown “towards a sustainable path of economic recovery” could be a subject of debate among economists, but it would hardly please the common man. -AFP File Photo

ISLAMABAD: It was but natural that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said his government did all the right things in its nearly three years when he cut short the life of his cabinet on Wednesday. The real picture has not been all that rosy, but a case of both feathers and failings, which could serve as a lesson for what would be a slashed future cabinet for the remaining two difficult years of the PPP-led coalition.

The prime minister did not appear all wrong when he recounted his government’s achievements ranging from perceived victories in the so-called war on terror to reconciliation with one-time political foes to landmark constitutional amendments before receiving formal resignations from all his ministers in line with a decision taken by the Central Executive Committee of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party last week.

But his speech, as shown on the state television, to the last meeting of the cabinet, did not mention any of the failures, or non-accomplishments, over which his government has attracted severe criticism of its political opponents and frequent anger on the streets such as on power cuts and the price hike.

While the government’s policy of reconciliations seemed to be doing wonders in the political fields despite early shocks of broken promises, it was actually the failings which became the main reason for a reconstitution of the cabinet, which is likely to come about soon after the ministers’ resignations are formally accepted by President Asif Ali Zardari.

The prime minister’s claim of success in steering the nation from a situation of economic meltdown “towards a sustainable path of economic recovery” could be a subject of debate among economists, but it would hardly please the common man suffering economic hardships due to skyrocketing prices in a double-digit inflation over the past three years that the government failed to control.

The so-called “rationalisation”, or cut, in subsidies has only meant higher power and petroleum rates, which brought people on the streets only recently and even at one point threatened the existence of the coalition before the issue was taken up by a joint committee of the PPP and opposition PML-N as part of a proposed PML-N reforms agenda.

A major failure in the economic field has been a failure to legislate promised reforms in the General Sales Tax, which were opposed by the entire opposition and even some coalition allies and are now being debated by a combined team of experts of the PPP and the PML-N.

And one of the government’s major embarrassments was an unmet deadline to do away with power cuts by the end of December 2009.

Despite what the prime minister called a “tremendous boost” in the agriculture sector, the farming community remains complaining about of higher costs of inputs.

Mr Gilani cited the rise of the country’s foreign exchange reserves to a record high of $17 billion and the Karachi Stock Exchange index crossing 12,000 points compared to 5,000 points when he took over as a “reflection of investor confidence”. But there has been very little foreign and domestic investment in the country probably mainly because of a bad law and order situation.

Of course, the government can take great credit for confronting terrorism, but problems still remain with the presence of troops still needed in areas like Swat valley where it claims to have successfully put down a Taliban revolt.

The prime minister took pride in the way “we together saw through” unprecedented floods last summer, but the rescue and relief operations were generally found lacking in the absence of local governments, which were dissolved as remnants of the Musharraf regime but not replaced by a new set-up by the provinces.

For unexplained reasons, the prime minister did not talk about his government’s performance in foreign relations while it is faced with new tensions with the United States over the fate of an American official arrested for shooting two men to death in Lahore and has not been able to resume peace dialogue with India.