We deserve no pity

Why should the United States or any other country in the world help us when we absolutely refuse to help ourselves? The latest example of this smug sense of entitlement was expressed by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who pleaded with the US ambassador to urge his government to release the approximately $900 million in Coalition Support Fund that Washington owes Islamabad for services rendered in the war against terrorism. There are several reasons why Mr Dar’s request is disgraceful.

The finance minister asked the Americans for money because the country is running dangerously low on foreign exchange reserves. Yet, these reserves could be very rapidly built up again were the government to simply live up to its end of the agreements it has signed with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and other multilateral lenders. The conditions that these institutions have set for their assistance may be politically difficult to achieve, but they only serve Pakistan’s own economic interest in the long run. Why should the United States give us money when we refuse to access a pile of money that is ours for the taking if we simply decide to make the tough choices needed to help ourselves?

The US government should, of course, release the funds it has promised. But that does not mean we should not make any effort to put our own house in order. We refuse to help ourselves on the economic front and refuse to tackle our own terrorism problem, but we malign as an enemy any person — Pakistani or foreign — who points out that fact to us: our misery is almost entirely of our own making. Yes, Pakistan needs foreign exchange reserves right now. But a significant amount of foreign cash is ours for the taking if the Nawaz Administration drags itself out of its own policy malaise and does what it promised its global lenders it would do. We are not beggars because we have to be. We are beggars because we choose to be.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2013.

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