The dropping of foreign reserve from 11 billion dollars to $3.68 billion and the rupee losing ten percent of its value vis a vis the US dollar in this week-breaking the two decades record indicates something terrible is rotting and happening in the state of Pakistan.
The rupee is continuously plummeting since the day Ishaq Dar took over as Finance Minister and reintroduced his Dar o nomics,claiming that the rupees would attain its true value and promised to bring it below the 200 per dollar rate by hook or crook. The rupee now stands ashamed at 266 to a dollar in the open market while imports of all major raw materials have ceased due to the foreign exchange depletion.
The prediction of the economic default appears to be coming true with no country willing to jump in to rescue the Pakistani economy. Friends of Pakistan have provided band-aids but no significant plans exist on the table to pull this country out of the economic quagmire.
The economic realities have started to bite the common man while the rich are wallowing in the windfalls gains they have gained from the economic mess.
Who is responsible for the acute economic crises- the politicians blame each other but they all are equally guilt of pushing the nation on the brink of this mega disaster staring us in the face.
Bajwa’s political doctrine and engineering resulting in the ouster of the PTI government surely contributed to the precipitation of the economic crises to this present dangerous stage. The PTI government’s handling of the economy was also not very wise and turbulent- Imran Khan had to remove 4 finance ministers in two years since 2018 and change 6 Finance Secretaries in three years of his tenure.
Removal of the Khan government by the establishment was a sledge hammer into the political and economic skull of the country.
Ishaq Dar’s naïve statement given recently “If Allah can create Pakistan then he can protect, develop and make it prosperous too” makes no economic sense nor will it have any positive impact on the country’s economy.
However his demand for investigating the downfall of the economy makes more sense than his previous statement and this should be done.
The free fall of the rupees can be traced back to the inability of the government to stop the flow of dollars across the border and the black marketing by the dollar mafia and banks.
Union of Small and Medium Enterprises (UNISAME) President Zulfikar Thaverhas correctly stated that the exchange companies and big mafias are behind the dollar crises. “They trade in dollars with black money to make huge profits and then hoard the currency to create demand for it. They have made it a parallel currency,”.The shortages of flour, petrol, electricity, in the country indicates that we are down the path which countries like Sri Lanka, Lebanon are already treading.
The shortage of funds for the country’s embassies and missions abroad including the payment of salaries of their employees as reported in a section of the press is a clear indication that the government is losing all financial control.
The bail out loans from the IMF will not save the country unless hard choices are made to remedy the crises.
As the Father of Modern Medicine Hippocrates once said “Extreme remedies are very appropriate for extreme diseases.” The leaders need to perform a major economic surgery to thrown out the carcinogenic tissues from the country’s torso and expand its tax net, reduce black marketing and corruption and strengthen institutions with zero respect for political engineering doctrines. WORLD TRIBUNE PAK
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