Parliamentary problems

The situation is a Catch-22 one. As things currently stand, Pakistan desperately needs money that the IMF can offer.

In a bid to persuade the IMF to restore the suspended $11.3 billion loan — put on hold because Pakistan had failed to implement reforms deemed by the lending body to be essential, including an end to subsidies and de-regulation of the energy sector — Finance Minister, Hafiz Sheikh, during talks in Washington, stated that parliament was the biggest obstacle in the way of reform. He stressed that while Pakistan wished to be self-sustaining, problems existed such as the failure of the government to obtain parliamentary approval for the reformed general sales tax bill. The proposed measure which, if implemented, would have resulted in an increase in the prices of a number of items, had resulted in a showdown between the government and key allies, leading to a political crisis which threatened at one point to even topple the government. Mr Sheikh, during what appears to have been a somewhat terse dialogue, also highlighted cases against some 4,000 organisations still pending in courts.

The situation is a Catch-22 one. As things currently stand, Pakistan desperately needs the money that the IMF can offer. But, at the same time, for reasons that are obvious, the political parties, notably those in opposition, feel compelled to speak out for hard-pressed people who are quite literally unable to pay out more for utilities or for items used in households every day. Many could have predicted that this situation was bound to arise from the time in 2008, when Pakistan signed its accord with the IMF. At the time, there seemed to be little choice than to do so.

But now we must consider what the solutions could be. Perhaps all major parties in parliament need to sit together to come up with some. This is not an occasion to try and score political points; it is after all easy to criticise and much harder to make concrete proposals. Mr Sheikh mentioned Pakistan’s desire to attain self-sufficiency and move into international markets. It needs to find the means to do so on an urgent basis and move beyond the rather difficult situation of dependency we find ourselves in now.



Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th, 2011.