B2B sfyh.comThe Planning Commission deputy chairman has urged the government to improve governance and productivity by shutting down 123 departments and organisations while privatising dozens others – a plan that is close to the US model of governance.
In an interaction with the media on Monday, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Dr Nadeemul Haq said that markets are ‘over-regulated’ and that has resulted in slow productivity and bad management of the economy.
After the 2008 financial crisis, the world has been debating the Washington and the Beijing Consensus. The Washington Consensus talks about free market economy with a limited state role, while the Beijing Consensus revolves around the concept of monopolist state control of the market.
After the 18th Amendment, the federal government transferred five federal ministries to the provincial governments and is in the process of transferring a dozen more. However, it has not closed down or merged dozens of other departments that have failed to justify their existence.
Haq, who is advocating economic reforms, said there was a need to privatise Pakistan Railways, Pakistan Steel Mills and other loss-making corporations, while departments like tourist, motel, printing and publishing bodies should be dissolved. A 2.5 per cent annual growth rate cannot create jobs for three million individuals who are entering the market every year, said Haq.
He stressed the need for accelerating the privatisation process, but said that privatisation was not the only solution to the problem, as it is better to restructure loss-making entities and close down the departments recommended by Dr Ishrat Hussain in a report.
“The government’s job is to formulate policy and regulate the market but not to run the business,” he added. Haq urged the government to implement the National Commission for Government Reforms (NCGR) report of 2008.
The report had recommended retaining 288 government organisations out of 411. The NCGR had proposed to abolish all subordinate offices and semi-autonomous bodies.
Haq admitted that the government was lagging behind in reforms because people were resisting the change. He also criticised the policy of bringing reforms through government bodies and cabinet committees. “Reforms can only be implemented by giving financial and administrative autonomy to the heads of institutions,” he added.
Haq is working on a new growth strategy that revolves around the pillar of free market economy, good governance, planned urbanisation and productivity enhancement. He said there was resistance to the new growth strategy but the Planning Commission has been successful in generating debate on reforms.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 8th, 2011.
HAVANA, March 7 (UPI) — Cuba is cutting back state jobs as part of its plan to embrace market economy in stages but still holds at least 100 political prisoners without trial, independent media reports said.
Cuban President Raul Castro announced plans for massive job cuts — half a million for a start — and exhorted Cubans to become self-employed but the tentative step toward market economy of a sort doesn’t square with the government adherence to policies against dissent, critics said.
The Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation said at least 100 political prisoners were behind bars and cited “low-intensity repression” that led to 2,074 brief, arbitrary arrests in 2010.
The overall situation concerning respect for civil, political, economic and cultural rights remains negative for the vast majority of Cubans, the commission said. It cited documented evidence of 105 people held for political or socio-political reasons, compared with 201 in January 2010.
Cuba released a number of dissidents last year after talks initiated by Spanish and Roman Catholic Church officials.
Havana denies holding political prisoners and brands the dissidents mercenaries of the United States and accuses dissidents of aiming to undermine Cuba’s communist system.
However, the government’s most recent difficulties are the result of promises made and not yet fulfilled and nearly all related to economic reforms.
Raul Castro said in a television broadcast a state sector target to lay off half a million workers by the end of March would not be met. Instead, he said, a new timetable for turfing people out to seek other jobs or become self-employed would be announced to soften the impact of retrenchment.
The ruling Communist Party has called for a congressional session in April where issues related to the job cuts are likely to dominate the agenda. The government employs about 85 percent of Cuba’s known workforce.
Castro didn’t give a target date for the planned retrenchments but said the government-led economic overhaul would take at least five years to be fully implemented.
Thousands of committees across the country are looking into ways of cutting the jobs. Analysts said the irony of the committee network wasn’t lost on those in fear of losing their jobs, as the committee members would likely hold their jobs longer than those who could go as a result of decisions by the committees and their superiors. It wasn’t clear if the committees were wholly voluntary or partly on government payroll.
About 7 million Cubans took part in a total of nearly 130,000 committee meetings called to decide the fate of government employees.
More tangible progress was made in handing out concessions on self-employment and private enterprise. Cubans can now apply for a license to start their own business, rent out space from their homes or farms and even hire other Cubans, especially in agriculture.
Farmers received additional incentives, including fertilizer and seeds, if they promised to boost food production.
Despite those relaxations, the state continues to have a say in all parts of Cuban life but is having trouble getting young Cubans back to work in the old, regimented fashion.
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/03/07/Cuba-cuts-jobs-to-embrace-market-economy-but-still-holds-100-dissidents/UPI-59861299499620/#ixzz1Fzi2VXfM
Lending to small businesses by banks based in the Philadelphia area had a slight uptick at the end of last year, after declining steadily since 2009 and despite some of the biggest local lenders still scaling back.
The aggregate value of business loans between $250,000 and $1 million held by 90 local banks climbed 1 percent during the fourth quarter, to $1.70 billion on Dec. 31 from $1.68 billion on Sept. 30, according to an Inquirer analysis of FDIC data.
The small gain in loans used by thousands of area small businesses to buy equipment and pay bills before customers pay them came after a 21 percent decline from a peak of $2.17 billion on June 30, 2009, the data show. Lack of demand caused much of that decline, but some banks were also cutting off credit to customers.
The turn in the lending trend is good news for business owners, though probably not for those that remain cash-strapped and struggling, because even the most active banks are still being choosy about picking up customers.
Fox Chase Bank, for example, looked at $750 million in commercial loan requests last year to make $152 million in loans, which was less than the Hatboro bank’s target, said president and chief executive officer Thomas Petro.
“In my experience – this is my 30th year in banking – that’s an unprecedented level of work” to make that level of loans, Petro said. “It’s testament to the continued weakness in the business climate in this region.”
However, Petro said, many of the companies whose loan requests were rejected are getting themselves in better financial shape. “We would consider going back to those businesses,” he said.
A Bucks County manufacturing executive said banks and borrowers are both in tough spots.
“If you can’t work with your existing bank and you need to change, you are going to have a hard time,” said Tom Lawton, president of Advent Design in Bristol.
“I don’t blame it on the banks, at least not our regional banks, because it’s not that they don’t want to lend. Their criteria are not being met,” said Lawton, who banks with Univest, of Souderton.
A second type of small-business loan tracked by the FDIC, those with a balance of between $250,000 and $1 million and secured by real estate that is not a residence or a farm, remained virtually flat in the fourth quarter at $4.29 million. From their peak in June 2009, such loans are down 6 percent.
The data used for this article do not include most of the biggest banks that do business here, such as Wells Fargo, TD, and PNC, because the FDIC loan data are not broken out by region.
Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania’s loans are included because it reports independently to the FDIC even though it is a subsidiary of Citizens Financial Group.
Citizens Bank’s balance of commercial loans secured by real estate and with balances between $250,000 and $1 million fell 27 percent to $320.5 million from a peak of $439.6 million in June 2008, according to the FDIC data.
Daniel K. Fitzpatrick, Citizens Bank president, said that the bank had increased its market share among companies with more than $25 million in annual sales and that in the last six months it had hired six additional lenders in eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey for businesses with between $5 million and $25 million in sales.
National Penn Bank, another lender with a steep decline in small-business loans, recently hired a dozen lenders to get back on a growth track, CEO Scott Fainor said.
National Penn’s small-business loans secured by real estate peaked at $734 million and were down 36 percent to $470 million on Dec. 31. “We were so focused on reducing problem assets,” Fainor said.
Executives at small, relatively new banks, such as Valley Green Bank in Philadelphia, said they were gaining business because of such issues at larger competitors.
“We’re seeing that a lot of the larger banks, because of capital issues, have elected not to renew existing working capital lines of credit,” said Valley Green CEO Jay Goldstein. “These are quality businesses, and the refusal has nothing to do with the borrower and everything to do with the financial institutions,” Goldstein said.
The biggest percentage gainer in small-business lending since June 2009, when bigger banks went into retreat, is Harleysville Savings Bank, which started commercial lending in 2006. Harleysville Savings’ book of commercial loans secured by real estate has tripled to $20.2 million from $6.7 million.
“We’ve benefited from the First Niagara name going up across the street,” said Harleysville’s chief financial officer Brendan McGill, referring to the acquisition of hometown competitor Harleysville National Bank & Trust Co. by First Niagara Financial Group, of Buffalo.
A First Niagara spokeswoman said the bank is doing well in Harleysville National’s market. “Total loan originations and line of credit advances increased 34 percent last year” in eastern Pennsylvania, Leslie Garrity said.
Chris Schalleur, founder of Christo IT Services in Harleysville, said he knew of two clients who switched from First Niagara because the transition did not go well, though he did not know where they bank now.
Where does Christo IT Services bank? It uses MileStone Bank in Doylestown because MileStone came through with a loan for an acquisition during the financial crisis. “We were at the 11th hour, the deal was going to fall through,” Schalleur said.
Fairfax Media says it has bought an online holiday rental and corporate accommodation business for $29.1 million.
The diversified media house said today it had purchased Occupancy, which would extend its online transaction business.
Occupancy operates the rentahome.com.au and takeabreak.com.au websites, among others.
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Fairfax chief executive Greg Hywood said Occupancy was growing strongly and had huge market potential.
“Occupancy also provides a perfect fit with our stated strategy of expanding in the online transactions sector, where we are committed to further strengthening our position,” Mr Hywood said.
Occupancy will be combined with Fairfax’s existing holiday and travel website stayz.com.au, Fairfax said.
“Following the transaction, the current shareholders of Occupancy will hold approximately 10 per cent of the combined Stayz/Occupancy business with Fairfax controlling the remainder,” Fairfax said.
I remember my first university lecture as though it was yesterday. A crusty academic told students to look at the person two seats down from them, because they might not be there next semester. True to his word, many failed and had to repeat the course before proceeding in the degree.
Fast forward 23 years and I lunched with an academic last week who said he rarely fails people in his business Master’s subjects. “We have high entry standards and most students work hard in the course,” he said. “If someone’s not up to scratch, I’ll let them know they need to improve. But I don’t see the need to fail anybody who does the work … it does more long-term harm than good.”
This academic is hardly alone. Many who responded to my blog “Does University Education Still Pay” complained about falling university marking standards and too many business schools devaluing their degrees by making them easier to pass.
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This reader comment reflected the mood: “Any business model involving paying fees for entry dilutes the quality of students and encourages both the dumbing down of the material and the passing of undeserving and underperforming students.”
What’s your view?
Are university marking standards slipping? Is it too easy to pass? If so, why?
Is there an expectation these days that nobody will fail their university degree if they submit the work?
This blog is not just another tirade about business schools. If some want to devalue their brand by passing undeserving students, that’s their choice. Their “piece of paper” will eventually become worthless when Australian business realises it is being badly let down by so many business schools that have poor research standings and outsource too much teaching.
My concern is about Australia developing more innovators and entrepreneurs who take risks and have the resilience to stick out the tough times, and start again if their venture fails.
I suspect some universities are sending an awful message to a generation of young business students: “If you hand in the work, you’ll pass.”
Since when was just “doing the work” good enough? Surely those who do the work, try hard, give it all they have but still aren’t up to the standard, should fail.
When did we become so complacent?
Universities who pass undeserving business students are not building future innovators or entrepreneurs. All they are building is a false sense of entitlement and self-belief among students. They are not giving students life skills to overcome inevitable failures and setbacks that emerge in business.
KPMG demographer and social commentator Bernard Salt told me last year in an interview for a BRW feature: “Many Gen-Ys think ‘Planet Normal’ is being pampered by their employer and told almost daily how talented and wonderful they are. But the oldest Gen-Ys will wake up one day in the next five to 10 years and realise not everybody can be the boss, and not everybody gets a prize in the workforce. They will realise middle-age is turning out not nearly as prosperous as they expected.”
It’s an excellent point. Too much of this “pampering” starts are university, where younger business students expect everybody to get a distinction or credit. That was my experience while lecturing. It was unthinkable to fail a student who submitted all assessment; only those who dropped out or went missing failed.
Where’s the reward for top business students who work hard and have more skill, if everybody gets a reasonable mark? Where’s the competition? Where’s the message that just “doing the work” and turning up is not good enough?
Critics might have three objections to this blog.
First, that I’m making generalisations about all universities and all courses having low failure rates. My comments are based on dozens of reader comments and emails this year about generally falling research standards at Australian business schools only.
I would love to be wrong on this one. If anyone has evidence that disproves this anecdotal view that university business courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels are becoming easier to pass, send it through. (My definition of failure is students who submit all the work, or take all the tests, and still fail. I don’t refer to failure as “attrition” where students drop out, although I accept many do so because they cannot keep up.)
Alternatively, if you have a strong view that some Australian university business courses have been “dumbed down” – with Master’s degrees resembling undergraduate degrees, and undergraduate degrees resembling TAFE courses, send that to me too.
Second, critics may argue, with justification, that the system is at fault, rather than universities. By forcing universities to become more “customer-centric”, the Federal Government has made them like any other commercial enterprise, where the customer is always right. How can you treat students like “customers”, fail them if their work is not good enough, and still take their money and expect them to come back for more?
Other theories for falling marking standards include: too much university focus on “churning” students through courses to get fees; too many international students; lower fail rates attract more students, especially those from overseas who need the qualification; and too much outsourcing of teaching to consultants and other poorly paid “sessionals” expected to mark dozens of assignments for a pittance. As a sessional lecturer told me: “I don’t get paid enough to mark assignments in detail, let alone fail students.”
My theory is this “customer-centric” focus is forcing too many university business schools to become more like training organisations, when they should be learning organisations. We risk turning university business education into vocational training by outsourcing more lecturing to lower-paid “consultants” with modest academic qualifications and no grounding in latest academic thinking.
Australia desperately needs more learned business academics who can inspire students to think differently and become lifelong learners. We need academics with the freedom to research issues that might not always be “customer centric”, give students the benefit of their research, and get support from well-run business schools that respect academic principles and rigour. Higher, globally competitive, pay for the best Australian business academics is the place to start.
The third objection may be that I’m too harsh on students. I don’t expect any university to fail students for the sake of it – arguments about “bell-curve” marking are silly if the entire class does well. I just want every business student to earn their degree fairly – not through lax university standards or lecturers under so much pressure they don’t have time to fail people.
I want Australian businesses, big and small, to know that when they recruit a student on the basis of credits or distinctions, those marks are real and that university standards remain high.
Most of all, I don’t want universities to add to the Gen-Y trend where everybody expects to do well and nobody fails, or has little experience in recovering from setbacks and disappointments.
Real innovation and entrepreneurship starts with resilience. Real resilience starts with education at home, school and university.
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