Unfortunately, successive governments neither paid heed to the free advice, nor made other than feeble attempts to rectify the red blips on the macroeconomic map. Runaway extravagance, reckless borrowing, lack of political will in undertaking arduous, politically unpopular reforms, have mired Pakistan in its present sorry fiscal mess. The public debt in current fiscal year would widen to 82.3 per cent of the total size of the national economy, while budget deficit will be a cavernous Rs2.6 trillion. To the common man, the chief swallower of above bitter pill (especially in IMF ‘bailouts’) the government’s poverty reduction Ehsaas Programme will provide much-needed social safety nets. The various antidotes to our economic ills are well known, but austerity, economic self-abnegation, shunning excessive consumerism and encouraging savings should also be added to the list.

Source: Pakistan Today April 08, 2019 19:22 UTC