The GCD report does not address this extractive policy design, these efforts to preserve and perpetuate this capital order. So, to begin with, the GCD report is strongly limited and the ‘package of governance reforms’ that in turn is approached from the lens of neoliberal- and austerity-based framework is not only significantly limited in improving governance and incentive structures but also debilitates the already weak capacity of demos – at the back of decades of similar minded policies – to empower demos in meaningfully pushing for policies – like meaningful expansion of tax base, deep investments in education, meaningful empowerment of election-related frameworks in much better price discovery for both labour and goods/services, and in overall creating institutions/ministries/departments that help lower transaction costs and create organizations, and markets – that allow equal opportunities for reaching inclusive and equitable growth outcomes for most.

Hence, some of the policies that are being suggested in GCD report may be discussed as an example to understand not only the limited nature of these reform-related recommendations for reducing corruption and elite capture, but how they might actually be accentuating this capital order; for instance, ‘improving the performance of the public procurement system by eliminating preferences for State-Owned Enterprises’.

SOEs are generally strategically important industry for domestic production and exports, and therefore to leave it to otherwise weak price discovery and volatile nature of prices at the back of frequent supply frictions, sellers’ inflation, and import price shocks-related inflation is not recommended because as Naomi Klein in her internationally reputed book ‘Shock doctrine: the rise of disaster........

© Business Recorder