‘Challenges, challenges’

This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed “Challenges, challenges” carried by the newspaper yesterday.

That the writer, Rashed Rahman, as usual, has presented a very informed perspective on the current situation is a fact. His take on the country’s economy, in particular, is quite interesting, so to speak. According to him, for example, “First and foremost of these [challenges] is the state of the economy.

As the crisis of the last few years has clearly exposed, industry’s import-intensive character feeds into our balance of payments deficit since industry cannot run smoothly and efficiently if the supply chain from abroad of critical plant and machinery, parts, raw materials (including quality cotton no longer available domestically because of the failure to address this and other agricultural declines), etc., is disrupted (in the recent case through restricting import Letters of Credit)….

Agriculture’s neglect reflects the consequences of no land reforms (redistribution from the inefficient large landholdings to the poor peasantry, which would usher in intensive cultivation), concentration on research and development of quality seeds (especially cotton), and revisiting the negative consequences of a wholesale turn to sugarcane cultivation in the interests of the sugar mafia (which has the added consequence of exacerbating water-logging and salinity).” The writer has also suggested some steps that are ostensibly aimed at achieving an economic turnaround in due course.

In my humble opinion, however, the current state of economy is beyond repair, to say the least. Examine all the economic indicators minutely and you would certainly share my pessimism.

How ironic, however, it is that the economic slide of the country actually started with the so-called advent of uninterrupted democracy or civilian rule in the country.

All the parties that have ruled the country following the 2008 general election are responsible for bringing the country to this pass. During this period, the required policymaking and policy implementation were conspicuous by their absence.

We are on the brink of financial collapse for quite some time, given these 16 or so years of misgovernments have bankrupted the country.

What should shame us is the fact that one of the first steps that newly-elected prime minister Shehbaz Sharif took hours after he was administered oath of his office by President Arif Alvi was to ask his finance team to proceed with talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to clinch another (25th since the creation of Pakistan) bailout.

Needless to say, the country desperately needs further lending from the Fund to repay its external debt obligations in order to battle the likely specter of sovereign default. Here we must not lose sight of the fact that we are, after all, a sovereign nation.

Nasim Zehra Reza (Islamabad)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024