The state and people of Pakistan are embattled with an awkward situation and ignominy, that deluges and troubles come in sequence one after another and leaders’ lack the capacity to sail the nation through those upheavals. A well groomed economy and prosperous nation fell victim to bad governance of its rulers, who had further created problems for the nation through their business oriented strategies and politically motivated development projects throughout history.
Recently, the caretaker Finance Minister has briefed the Upper House Standing Committee on Finance that Pakistan’s economic situation was worse than anticipated and the government did not have fiscal space to provide subsidies. According to her, the interim set-up had inherited the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, which is non-negotiable. While commenting on the current situation, the interim Minister said that government institutions were suffering unbearable losses and over 70 percent of Pakistan’s tax revenue was being spent on debt relief. Low inflows and high outflows of dollars undermine the local currency and add to the inflated cost of living in the country.
Besides considering pros and cons of the situation, it is high time that the nation must deliberate on the conduct of its leaders, style of governance and reasons leading to recurrent economic downfall of the country, poor performance of national institutions and persistent degradation of each sector of the national economy. Historically, after the death of Quaid-e-Azam and assisnation of Qaid-e-Millat Liaqat Ali Khan, no leader ever ruled the country with honesty and good faith, their governance and growth was fundamentally constituency based, area or ethnicity centric that ultimately ended up in failure and nonproduction. Meanwhile, no government or institutions including Planning Commission of Pakistan ever assessed the future needs of the country, emerging challenges, and interest of the society that serious negligence has resulted in irregulated growth, uncontrolled population, ungoverned construction, scarcity of energy and abundance of consumers, high power tariffs, and public weakness in paying off utilities bills. The current situation clearly presents that our nation had mostly been wandering for which progress and comforts over the past decades was genuinely an eye syndrome that ended up empty handed.
As far as available options are concerned the nation still has a variety of alternatives that would not only smoothly sail the country through the current fiasco but can fix this issue on a permanent basis in the future. Subsidies are surgery poison that hurt the national economy in the long term but improve the public rating of the politicians. Realistically, operating business entities and colossal manufacturing giants is not state responsibility, the government should have a regulatory control over provision of essential items including electricity, gas, telecommunication and other services. All state owned entities including the WAPDA, PIA, Pakistan Steel, PNSC and others must be privatized without any delay so billions of rupee annual circular debt could be eliminated and that huge amount could be spent on development and welfare projects. Afterall, mismanagement and corruption of the leaders are the pavitol in bringing the nation to this day. The public must censure the rulers for the bad governance and poor performance through the legitimate electoral process, that will not only remove corruption and nepotism from politics but will bring resilience and tolerance in this field. Otherwise, no one can guarantee the economic survival and dignified existence of this nation during the crucial times ahead.
