Every government elected or otherwise, in Pakistan borrowed for the lending agencies to run the country. Borrowing in essence is not wrong or bad if the country has the capacity and growth to pay off the debts. However, unfortunately, we have been deficit funding our economy where our capacity to retire the debts was never at par with our borrowing. Resultantly, every government had to borrow to retire past debts and to run the country. Every few years or so, the nation gets to hear that we are on the brink of default or complete economic meltdown. The worst part is that our leaders, instead of fixing the problem have always indulged in the blame game. Mostly, it was between the PMLN and the PPP with long intervals of dictators. The plot was always the same that the party or person assuming would blame the predecessors for the economic misery of the country but keep doing the same to further bury the economy in debt, which it could not repay. In 2018, PTI entered the scene with a very optimistic and challenging goal to end the vicious economic quagmire country was in. Unfortunately, it did not realize the magnitude of the problem while making claims and got stuck in a severe economic jam with loan repayments due and kitty empty. They had no option but to reach out to the IMF for loans to keep things going. However, they promised to follow caution and change things in due course. As luck would have it, in 2019 Corona pandemic struck the world leading to a global economic downturn. This put the PTI government in a very tough spot, which they seem to be emerging out of. What surprised and perplexed the nation over the past three years is the attitude of the PPP and the PMLN. Both parties being responsible for the problem to a large extent kept taunting the PTI government for borrowing and begging. One wonders if they really thought that there was another way out. If they really were serious, they should join hands with the government to suggest policies that put the country on the path of economic prosperity. However, if they knew any different, Pakistan would not be in this mess in the first place. As for begging, I would like to draw their attention to the verses of Allama Iqbal “Maangney wala gada hai sadka maangey ya khiraaj; koi maney y ana maney, peer or sultan sab gadaa.”
Raja Shafaatullah
Islamabad
