Mountains of debt

This refers to the article ‘Course correction’ (January 13) by Dr Farrukh Saleem. The writer has mentioned two positive points. First, exports are up by 15 percent and second, trade deficit is down by 5 percent. But at the same time the writer has added, “We are taking on debt like never before. Over the past five months, we have been adding Rs15 billion a day to our national debt as compared with an average of Rs8 billion a day during the five years of the PML-N and Rs5 billion a day during the five years of the PPP (all figures include the devaluation impact)”. This sharp increase in debt should start ringing alarm bells in government circles. It may be mentioned that the exercise of taking loans is simple and convenient, but paying the loan back is difficult.

No government in the past has ever thought of ways and means of generating money. Government revenue can be generated by increasing exports. And the exports can be enhanced by manufacturing and exporting quality products. But, in Pakistan, nobody cares for quality. Thousands of tonnes of mangoes have been rejected in the past by foreign countries due to poor quality. If I correctly remember, consignments as large as 10,000 tons of quality mangoes from Pakistan have been rejected by the European Union and other countries as they didn’t meet the quality standards set by those countries.

Air Cdre (r) Azfar A Khan

Karachi