KARACHI:
The recently released Economic Survey 2024–25 offers little to celebrate and much to mourn. With GDP growth reduced to a modest 2.7%, and key sectors like industry and agriculture barely surviving, the government’s attempt to rebrand this downturn as “recovery” borders on farce. If failure had a face, it would be this document, and the grinning ministers defending it.
Only two years and a half ago, Pakistan was growing at over 6%. Exports were rising, remittances were strong and investor confidence was building. But that momentum was swiftly sabotaged. A functioning government was removed not for misgovernance, but for becoming too independent, too effective and too popular. What followed was not economic reform but political engineering — and the economy paid the price.
Inflation soared past 35%. The rupee collapsed. Industries withered. And while families struggled to survive, the very architects of this chaos patted themselves on the back for “stabilising” what they themselves had wrecked. The irony is suffocating.
Today, we are being sold the illusion of a modest rebound. But the truth is clear: this crisis wasn’t accidental, it was imposed. Progress was halted, not by global forces, but by those within, afraid of change.
Recovery can only begin when democracy is restored, leadership is earned — not installed — and when the economy is no longer used as a political weapon.
But, as Ghalib so eloquently wrote, “Hazaaron khwahishain aisi ke har khwahish pe dum nikle…”
This nation had dreams. Tragically, we watched many of them die — one by one.
Faisal I Siddiqi
Mississauga, Canada
