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Musharraf blames Pak elite for nation's woes

Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, has said the nation's elite, ''me included,'' had failed the poor majority of the country's 135 million people and pledged to improve the lot of the ''common man.''

''To put it bluntly, we are near the brink of bankruptcy. We have been looted, plundered at will. Our banks, our financial institutions are near being empty,'' he said yesterday in remarks to a Pakistani-American organisation.

He was referring to hundreds of rich and influential people who have defaulted on loans from state banks totalling nearly five billion dollars, which he has pledged to recover in a new national crackdown against corruption.

Gen Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless October 12 coup, said his 50-day-old government would work to improve the lot of ordinary people in a nation where the average per capita income is less than 50 dollars a month.

Without naming Nawaz Sharief, the prime minister he deposed, Gen Musharraf said the rich and powerful had abused their positions to rob state banks and enrich themselves and urged the moneyed classes to help improve the plight of the poor.

''Let those who have the resources contribute towards the betterment of the poor. After all, who has let Pakistan down? It is the elite, me included, the bureaucratic elite, industrial elite, military elite, religious elite,'' he said.

Gen Musharraf said Pakistan in its 52 years of existence had failed to take action against the elite and had always punished ''the poor chap down the ladder.''

''There is a mental block in our minds because we cannot act against the powerful and the rich,'' Gen Musharraf said.

Political analysts have long blamed Pakistan's tiny elite -- only one million pay income tax -- of running the country for their own vested interests in a succession of governments which have done little to improve rural incomes.

But such criticism has rarely been made by a Pakistani leader in Islamabad, a purpose-built capital with every possible facility, in stark contrast to the poverty of rural life which begins at the city limits.

Gen Musharraf, who is due to unveil an economic programme on December 15, said his goal was ''consistency, sincerity and credibility'' to lure foreign investors back to a country, which has a reputation for the opposite.

But he said he wanted to end a borrowing spree which has landed the country with 32 billion dollars in foreign debt, tense relations with international financial institutions and a reputation for living way beyond its means.

''We have to become self-reliant and stand on our own feet. We shall not beg, we shall not borrow,'' he said.

Pakistan this week resumed formal negotiations with the International Monetary Fund on unfreezing a 1.56 billion dollar loan programme which was suspended under Sharief's unpredictable economic management.

But Gen Musharraf said he wanted to improve the economy so that international institutions like the IMF no longer sought economic reforms that hurt those least able to withstand them.

''We must get out of the syndrome of borrowing and then having to undertake policies which may not be in the interests of the common man,'' he said.

Reuters

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