According to the media, the Federal Government has started homework to initiate talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to seek a $6 billion bailout package to coup up the forthcoming debt payment crises that are more likely to emerge if these urgent measures are not implemented timely. According to details, newly-elected Prime Minister Shehbaz has directed the Finance Ministry to immediately kick start the procedure for initiating talks with the IMF regarding the Extended Fund Facility (EFF).
Pakistan faces longheld problems of poor fiscal management, irrational decision making, and bad governance that caused a vicious cycle of mass circular debt, economic slowdowns, and low foreign reserves that require frequent injections of foreign loans/ aids from the global lenders and the friendly nations to provide temporary relief to the bed-ridden economy. Historically, every sector from Agriculture to industry, fuel procurement to energy production and distribution, health and education, from business and trade to currency regulation and foreign exchange witnessed degradation and unproductivity throughout the past.
The agri sector receives massive subsidies on various accounts but performed below its potential, The Industry became uncompetitive due to high production costs and higher commodities prices. Management and utilization of human capital remained a big challenge for the governments as over 26 million children are currently out of school, high infant mortality rates, and the lack of public health services are persistent issues. Amid such heart-left scenarios, over 200 State Owned Entities (SOEs) further nose downed the crumbling economy with an annual addition of billions of losses on an annual basis.
Historically, Pakistan’s economic outlook often sails through these cyclones throughout the year, and the majority of the governments accuse their predecessors of spoiling the country’s economy and creating hurdles for the successors but the incumbent rulers reassumed their work from where they left a few months back without blaming the caretakers for any misappropriation and poor performance. Pakistan’s current short-term loan program with the IMF will end in April 2024 and the government faces problems in meeting the balance of payments in the midterm. Henceforth, the country and its leaders have no solution to take new loans to pay the previous baggage of the global lenders.
Unfortunately, Pakistani leaders always searched for solutions to the country’s economic issues through foreign loans, grants, and assistance from friendly countries on an ad-hoc basis instead of making efforts to tackle those issues through legal and infrastructural reforms, stringent economic measures, and exploitation of domestic resources so the nation comes out of persistent economic frailty on sustainable conditions. Such selfish attitudes and imprudent policies have led the country to the current stage wherein no aspect of our national life presents pride and satisfaction.
At the moment, there is a need for patriotic hard work and sagacity to think out and implement rational policies that benefit the country in the long term. The loss-making State-Owned Entities (SOEs) were a burden on the national exchequer and had always eaten up the public’s resources in the past. Those unproductive monsters must be privatized on an urgent basis. The power resources must be diversified to produce cheaper green energy that will not only reduce the production cost of the local industry making it compatible with the global levels along with providing significant relief to the public on account of kitchen heating, transport fares, and overall inflation in the country. The country has no scarcity of resources and talent but lacks patriotism and sincerity in its leadership and bureaucracy, who owe authority, undertake decisions, implement policies, and steer the country through all wax and wane. As the new government has assumed the responsibility, the nation eagerly awaits the tact and credo of its leaders that might bring affluence in their lives or otherwise.
