Homemade reforms agenda needed to overcome economic problems: economists

Pakistan needs to implement homemade reforms agenda to address the problems of various sectors of the economy. This was stated by former Advisor to Finance Ministry Dr Ashfaq Hasan Khan and former Finance Minister Punjab Dr Ayesha Ghaus Pasha while speaking at a panel discussion titled 'Current Economic Challenges and the Need for Strengthening Social Sector of Pakistan - Where Does Pakistan Stand?' The event was organised by Oxford Press Publication Tuesday.
Dr Ashfaq Hassan Khan underlined the need for continuous reforms in every sector of economy and wanted them to be homemade instead of those suggested by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with stringent conditions. He said that Pakistan must not go to the IMF because the country has been taking loans from the Fund for the last many decades but problems of the economy has worsened instead of showing improvement.
He said that there is no alternate to reforms and reforms should be a continuous process and are the only way to address the challenges of the economy. He also questioned as to why the IMF remained silent on exchange rate during the tenure of previous programme and stated: "It was a political programme and Pakistan should get out from it."
He maintained that Pakistan will be able to manage financing gap with the help of friendly countries as with the slowdown of economy, imports would also slow down and therefore, the financing gap will also be narrowed in the coming months. He said that positive growth in remittances has also given a hope.
However, former Finance Minister Punjab Dr Ayesha Ghaus Pasha disagreed with Dr Ashfaq Hassan Khan and stated that the country needs the IMF programme due to absence of foreign direct investment and only 4 percent contraction in current account deficit due to over 20 percent depreciation of exchange rate.
She said it is unfair to blame that the NFC was responsible for the federal government's fiscal problems, adding that the problem was due to lack of resource mobilisation for which both the federal and provincial governments are responsible.
She said the federal government is more responsible because it was living beyond its means. She said that major service delivery to the poorest was responsibility of the provinces and taking away funding from the provinces means depriving the poor of social services.