Prime Minister Imran Khan and members of his economic team regularly report weekly and monthly economic indicators to reassure the nation that the “economy is heading towards right direction”.
Prime Minister Imran Khan and members of his economic team regularly report weekly and monthly economic indicators to reassure the nation that the “economy is heading towards right direction”.
From exports to remittances and from large scale manufacturing to current account figures, everything is encouraging for the government.
Inflation, particularly the consistent rise in the prices of the essential items like sugar and flour, has been a major concern for the government for the past several months. However, prices of essential food items have shown a downward trend for the past three weeks.
The prime minister has categorically said that despite rising cases of Coronavirus infections and deaths in the wake of the second wave of the pandemic in Pakistan, the government has no plans to opt for a complete lockdown.
He said the country could not afford to stop the economy’s wheel from running to save people’s lives from the pandemic.
The main question is, whether the encouraging economic indicators are actually signs of an economic turnaround or not, and also if this trend is sustainable.
If this achievement was so remarkable, why is there talk of reviving the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme among the government circles?
All these positive signs indicate that in the week of timely assistance from friendly countries and international donors, Pakistan’s economy has successfully ridden through the dangers of complete economic meltdown. But in order to put the economy on revival mode, the government has to do much more.
In Pakistan’s history, there have been several instances when it achieved economic stabilisation, but it lost its way when it was required to put the economy on the path to stability.
One could still recall the stabilisation achieved during military president General Pervez Musharraf’s rule in 2006 and 2007, but everything swirled back to square one within a year.
If experiences of the past are any guide, then taking bold initiatives to fix long-standing issues afflicting the country’s economy and politics should be considered major factors that can lead to both economic and political stabilisation, and ultimately sustainability.
There is a general consensus among all major political parties on the economic matters, but unfortunately they do not cooperate with each other to turn this broad consensus into a sound policy.
Every government has tried to take solo flight to tackle economic problems faced by the country, but Pakistan’s economic malaise is so entrenched and deep-rooted that it has not been fixed by a single political party or by a single government.
Pakistan needs a long and sustainable effort to get out of the economic mess. Moreover, politicking is also a major hurdle towards proper redressal of the economic problems.
The previous Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government had planned to sell the loss-making public entities like Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) but it faced strong resistance from the then opposition parties like Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP).
The speeches of PTI’s chairman and now prime minister as well as party’s economic czar Asad Umar, who is now planning minister, are still making rounds on social media in which they strongly opposed the privatisation of both PIA and PSM.
But now the PTI government has decided to get rid of these entities, which have become a big liability for the national kitty.
Unfortunately, the government has approved the privatisation plans from the cabinet without putting the matter before the parliament to develop a consensus.
The government should have taken the political parties having representation in the parliament on board on such a crucial issue. However, it did not bother to do so.
Moreover, the decision has been taken at a time when the opposition parties are already out on the streets to oust the current government.
In such a politically tense environment, it would be a valid question to ask whether any potential foreign buyer would be willing to bet on such a huge investment.
From day one, the government has been unwilling to engage the opposition in any meaningful dialogue under the plea that their leadership was “corrupt”.
Ironically, the government’s accountability drive which has mainly targeted the leading opposition figures has failed to produce any tangible results.
The accountability process has become controversial amidst accusation that it is basically a witch-hunt aimed at victimising the opposition.
The working of the anti-corruption watchdog, the National Accountability Bureau, has been seriously questioned by the Supreme Court itself maintaining that it is largely used to target government rivals.
With no efforts made to reduce the tension, the situation became extremely hostile, forcing the government to only focus on ensuring its survival. This meant that the government hardly took any decisions to address the problems faced by the people.
Saner elements both in the government and opposition are stressing for a national dialogue to end the current mess, but so far there has been no indication from the top leadership of either side that they are willing to talk.
The opposition plans its biggest power show in its first round of protests against the government in Lahore on December 13, which it says will be followed by much stronger phase of protests that may include resignations by its deputies from the parliament.
Such a situation would shrink the possibility for any dialogue. The government and other stakeholders need to seriously ponder on ways to avoid such an eventuality.
The current situation is not new for Pakistan, but its occurrence has become so common in the country that people have increasingly grown fed up with this.
If the situation continues, it might become a repeat of 2007, when all measures for stabilisation made over the years were lost within a few months.
The ruling party is confident that the opposition protests pose no danger to its government. It might be true and it may survive the opposition’s onslaught, but it is very hard to imagine that the government will remain unscathed from the current situation.
This situation may paralyse and cripple the government’s working even if it manages to survive. In such circumstances, it would not be able to take any bold decisions, particularly on the economic front.
Pakistan needs to fix the problems at the political front on priority basis, failing which it could not genuinely and properly address the problem on the economic front.
The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad
