Cost of terror war to cross $120 bn in outgoing fiscal

ISLAMABAD: The Economic Survey for 2016-17 will incorporate the cost of war against terrorism that Pakistan had to incur in the last 15 years since 9/11, 2001 after becoming an ally of the US, which would cross $120 billion mark in the outgoing financial year, The News has learnt.

After facing massive economic losses in the last 15 years, Pakistan had received peanuts in return from all donors since 9/11, 2001 when Musharraf had decided to stand with the US in its war against terror. The upcoming Economic Survey 2016-17, going to be launched by Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar today (Thursday) will disclose the exact figures of cost of war incurred as burden on Pakistan’s economy at a time when the US is considering reducing the military aid for Islamabad and so far non-committal for reimbursements for amount under the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) for the next budget 2017-18. Although, the exact cost was not yet known, the Finance Ministry high-ups shared that this cost might cross

$120 billion definitely and it might be hovering around $122 billion as losses for different sectors of the national economy. Pakistan’s different ministries have worked out the exact cost Pakistan had to incur after becoming an ally of US in its war against terrorism.

In last Economic Survey for 2015-16, it had stated that in last 14 years, Pakistan had faced direct and indirect losses of $118.3 billion equivalent to Rs9869.16 billion. It is now expected that the overall losses for Pakistan’s economy will defiantly cross $120 billion mark in outgoing financial year.

Although, the terror related activities had significantly reduced in the aftermath of Zarb-e-Azb and now launched Radul Fassad to root out extremism. But still terrorist activities were haunting the country’s economy so the government decided to publish these figures through the upcoming Economic Survey 2016-17.

The upcoming Economic Survey will discuss prevalence of poverty in social safety net chapter without sharing any latest figures of poverty prevailing in Pakistan. The government had adopted new methodology by using cost of basic needs (CBN) and calculated poverty at 29.5 percent. Using CBN, a new poverty line, was estimated using patterns of consumption of reference group and it comes to Rs3,030 per adult equivalent per month using the latest available HIES 2013-14 data.

According to this methodology, 29.5 percent of the population is estimated to live below poverty line on the basis of 2013-14 data. Using the population estimate of 186.2 million for 2013-14 implies that around 55 million people are living below the poverty line in Pakistan. Using the old calorie based methodology, only 9.3 percent people in Pakistan are found below poverty line in 2013-14 which means 17 million people were living below the old poverty line.

Now the Planning Commission has constituted a high powered committee led by renowned economist G.M Arif and comprising of other members to calculate poverty on the basis of Household Income Expenditure Survey (HIES) for 2015-16. It is expected that the latest figures of poverty will be worked out during the next financial year any time and the government will be able to release these figures before the due general elections in 2018.