Miftah outlines problems afflicting economy

Pakistan’s economy suffers from three fundamental problems, of which first and foremost is that “we, as a nation, don’t live within our means”, remarked Miftah Ismail, former federal minister for finance and revenue.

He was speaking at an intellectual gathering titled “Pakistan’s Economic Future”, hosted by Habib University on Monday.

“Secondly, our focus is on import substitution and not export growth and lastly, there is ‘elite bargain’ in the country, essentially meaning that 99% of the population continues to work for the privileged 1%,” the ex-minister said while delving deeper into the fundamental issues faced by Pakistan’s economy.

During the talk held as part of efforts to promote intellectual discourse on a variety of issues, Ismail alluded to the difficult decisions he had faced at the time of taking office. “There was no commercial lending, we couldn’t sell our bonds and we weren’t part of the IMF programme.”

He pointed out that the government’s efforts to secure financing from friendly nations met with failure. “When you are defaulting, no one helps you out.”

Raising prices was the only way through which the country could have been saved from default, he argued.

To a question about what Pakistan would be like in 2047, Ismail was not too optimistic, pointing out that in the last 75 years, proper education had not been provided to the country’s youth and an inherently intolerant society was built.

He cited the example of many educated minority members having left the country for the same reason. Everyone knew the problems but when it came to solving them, there was a tendency to delay matters, he regretted.

“You are not developing institutes for IT, but want to export it, that’s not going to happen,” he said, while questioning as to how it was possible to talk about exporting information technology from Pakistan.

To a question regarding the possibility of receiving climate reparations, Ismail was of the opinion that there were other countries that were worse off than Pakistan when it came to the effects of climate change, adding that Pakistan was not really liked by most countries.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2022.

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