The debate in the National Assembly over the Green Pakistan Initiative, which plans to introduce corporate farming to irrigate five million acres of barren land, revealed several concerning aspects of how such plans and policies are conceived and implemented in Pakistan. While the general debate, with objections from political parties about where the water will be sourced from, who will fund these ventures, and the impact on small-scale farmers compared to corporate farmers, is expected and appropriate for the National Assembly to discuss, there are other issues that require a more comprehensive examination.

The primary concern is that while the plan was approved previously, it was the caretaker government that moved forward with land procurement and began negotiating agreements with the provinces. The revelation that 0.8 million acres of land were already acquired in Sindh and Punjab under the caretaker government is startling and points to yet another instance of overreach by the caretaker government. We must remember that the caretaker government’s sole role is to administer the country while general elections are held, with its primary responsibility being to avoid changing the country’s policies or implementing any new decisions that might require the approval of the general populace through their elected representatives in Parliament.

Yet, it seems that this caretaker government has already been embroiled in multiple controversies due to its overreach of power. The export of wheat, sugar, and cotton during their tenure has already caused multiple harms to the country, and now the revelation that it has purchased large amounts of land without proper approval from an elected Parliament shows that the remit of the caretaker government needs to be further controlled in the future. While the Green Pakistan Initiative will be discussed in Parliament in the coming days, the Parliament must also work towards further restricting and defining the roles and responsibilities of the caretaker government to ensure that future overreaches like this do not occur. Such actions create confusion for the subsequent caretaker government and the following elected government, which then has to rationalise these decisions against the wishes of the people.