Forum Pakistan

Haq, Mahbubul, Dr (1934-98)
Statesman. Mahbubul Haq was an economist who graduated from Government College in Lahore and earned his doctorate from Yale University (USA). In 1957, he joined the Pakistan Planning Commission and helped to draw up the country's Second and Third FiveYear plans. His work, The Strategy of Economic Planning (1963), brought him fame. However, by the late 1960s, Dr. Haq was highlighting the excessive concentration of wealth in the country by showing that 'twenty two families' controlled the bulk of the country's industrial and financial resources. This became a prime political issue in the late 1960s and early 1970s, driving the populistic slogans and governmental measures of the time. In the 1970s, Dr. Mahbubul Haq worked with the World Bank. In the early 1980s, he became Minister of Planning and Minister of Finance in the Pakistan Cabinet.

WORKS: 'The Strategy of Economic PLanning', Karachi, 1963; 'Behind the Poverty Curtain: A Choice Before the Third WorLd', Karachi, 1976.