Premier’s new economic team

Amid falling growth rate, weakening currency, poor tax collection & soaring inflation, PM has a new-look economic team

Amid a falling growth rate, a weakening currency, poor tax collection and soaring inflation, Prime Minister Imran Khan has a new-look economic team. The new man at the helm of the finance ministry, Dr Hafeez Shaikh, sees new faces in charge of the SBP and the FBR, Dr Reza Baqir and Syed Shabbar Zaidi respectively, to help him manage the first of the challenges he is faced with — a bailout package from the IMF and the federal budget 2019-20. The overall task, though, is to correct the course of the economy, thereby helping the prime minister with his promise of turning the country into a welfare state.

Even though carrying proven credentials in the world of finance and economy, all the three new appointments — of Shaikh, Baqir and Zaidi — have met with reservations from one quarter or the other. While Shaikh and Baqir are being criticised as ‘foreign imports’ mainly by the government’s political rivals, Zaidi’s association with the private sector is what has failed to go down well with inland revenue officers who have threatened a legal action against the appointment, claiming it to be in violation of a 2012 judgment of the Islamabad High Court whereby a similar appointment had been undone within just one year.

Controversies apart, Prime Minister Imran is confident of his new economic team. He is particularly optimistic of an improved tax collection performance under Zaidi, who is perceived to know the tax world inside out. Zaidi, on his part, aims to build trust between the state and the taxpayer through automation and minimising personal contact which, he believes, will automatically lead to the broadening of tax base.

So hopeful and so sure is the Prime Minister in this particular area that he, during his press conference in Islamabad yesterday, reiterated doubling the amount of tax collected, to a record Rs8 trillion — a claim that he used to make during his days in the opposition and that has, of late, turned out to be a subject of ridicule for his government given a record shortfall in tax collection during the ongoing fiscal year.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2019.

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