The overall Pakistani internal security situation seems to be deteriorating. Decades of social and institutional apathy towards vulnerable comminutes, hatred for minorities, discrimination based on region and subtle promotion of extremism have gradually resulted in widespread militancy and lawlessness making the administration challenging across the country. The problem gets further exacerbated with the rise of criminal gangs at local levels, which further jeopardizes the development and peaceful existence of the society.
When an all-weather ally China is consistently seen flagging security concerns regarding projects under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the situation cannot be considered normal. Repeated Chinese requests and warnings to Pak government for giving priority to the security of its personnel and property, highlights that the on-ground situation has continued to slip out of hands of the authorities. After a deadly suicide blast in Karachi that killed three Chinese in April 2022, China had to ask thousands of its nationals working on CPEC to increase their security and watch out for terrorist risks. It also warned that a special unit to attack Chinese officials and installations had been formed by entities opposed to Chinese investment in Pakistan, especially in the restive Balochistan.
However, the problem is not limited to the security of Chinese assets and workers alone. Flawed and discriminatory economic policies of both China and Pakistan have led to challenges for rest of the social and commercial ecosystem. The perceptible deteriorationin law and order across major cities has clearly hit the morale of investors including overseas ones. Ground level feedback from various channels points towards a visible setback to industrial activities due to security challenges cropping up across Pakistan. The latest annual security survey conducted by the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) report called the ‘Members Security Survey 2022’ reveals a declining trend in businessmen’s confidence with respect to law and order situation in the country.
The latest survey provides an area wise account of depleting faith of local companies in the law and order situation and administration’s ability to tackle it. Karachi which is the nerve centre of commercial activity in Pakistan and also called the financial capital of the country reveals a disturbing picture. Here, around 64 per cent of the respondents felt that there had been deterioration in current security environment. This is significantly higher than the corresponding figure of 50 per cent respondents, reported in 2021. Worse, only 5 per cent of the people consider the situation to have improved significantly in the city. This represents a huge decline from 17 per cent participants who were optimistic on this count during the 2021 survey.
For rest of the Sindh, around 35 per cent of the respondents viewed that the security situation in the province has deteriorated from last year. The pessimism seems to be confronting the business community from the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) as well. In KPK, around 37 per cent of the respondents believed that the security situation has worsened from the time of last survey, i.e. 2021. The situation is particularly disappointing for the businesses in Quetta. Here, around 64 per cent of the respondents admitted that the security crisis has increased during the last year.
Overall, the responses indicate towards building up of a crisis of confidence among the Pak business and trader community. In the near future, this is not expected to be a major political challenge for the government. But, considering the pace of change in perception of this community and society at large, this issue will not only impact the business environment within the country but also foreign inward investments. Ignoring or dismissing the concerns around it can thus turn out to be colossal oversight.