EDITORIAL: While most Pakistanis — particularly lower-income groups, the salaried class and the corporate sector — continue to battle severe economic hardships in the form of exorbitant tax rates, high prices of essential commodities and an overall decline in purchasing power, the government appears either indifferent to their struggles or wilfully neglectful.
This was evident from its irresponsible decision on February 27 to more than double the size of the federal cabinet.
A slew of new appointees, including 12 federal ministers, nine ministers of state, three advisers and four special assistants to the prime minister have joined the cabinet, bringing the total size of the body to 51 members.
It is clear that expanding the cabinet will directly raise government expenditure by adding salaries, benefits and operational costs for additional ministers, advisers and their staff, placing an increased load on our strained fiscal resources. This also blatantly contradicts earlier promises of austerity and reducing the size of the government that would have enabled the ruling elite to share the economic burden.
The government’s fiscally reckless action, therefore, sends a troubling message — that those in power have little regard for the sacrifices they demand from the people and have no compunctions about expanding their privileges.
The fact of the matter is that the country already faces a perennial struggle to balance its budget. Its tax revenue barely covers its debt obligations and defence expenditures, and the government is forced to rely heavily on borrowing to sustain its current expenditure needs.
Given these circumstances, one would have expected the rulers to realise the importance of fiscal restraint and that expanding the cabinet at this point would only add needless administrative costs when resources would be better directed towards other critical areas, such as programmes related to poverty alleviation, job creation and economic growth.
Instead we find ourselves in a perplexing scenario, where on the one hand the finance minister routinely emphasises the importance of rightsizing initiatives and restructuring the economy to curb wasteful spending, while on the other the ruling elite refuses to alter its lavish spending patterns.
It is also worth noting that the cabinet’s expansion follows the legislation that nearly tripled salaries of parliamentarians, highlighting our rulers’ misplaced priorities that have little to do with alleviating the financial struggles of ordinary citizens.
Prescriptions for tackling our economic challenges often stress the need to increase tax revenue and widen the tax net.
Equally crucial is for the government to rein in its exorbitant spending, especially since much of its expenditure is debt-financed, contributing to the fiscal deficit and aggravating the economic crunch.
When the PML-N-led government assumed power last year, this newspaper had urged the prime minister to recognise the importance of a lean government and of cutting down the current expenditure. He had been warned that the country could not afford to repeat past mistakes where political considerations led to bloated cabinets, and took precedence over sound economic management.
It appears, however, that the current dispensation doesn’t have the wherewithal or vision to break with this history. Instead of charting a new course rooted in fiscal prudence and administrative efficiency, it is perpetuating the same unsustainable practices that have repeatedly led us down the path of excessive reliance on funds from multilateral lenders to stay afloat.
Our rulers must realise that shifting global dynamics suggests that the days of relying on external financial lifelines to sustain an overextended bureaucracy and inefficient
governance model may be coming to an end. What we need is a more fiscally responsible, frugal approach to governance, and not the current model burdened by an oversized cabinet, an unwieldy government apparatus and persistent inefficiency.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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