Experts slam govt’s financial measures

Experts slam govt’s financial measures

KARACHI: Recent economic and financial measures taken by government don’t give a promising picture of Pakistan’s economic future. Government’s reluctance in taking drastic and revolutionary steps is the major hurdle in the way of improving country’s economy.

Renowned economist Dr Shahid Hasan Siddiqui expressed these views while addressing a seminar on ‘How Pakistan can successfully deal with its economic challenges?’ organised by Department of International Relations University of Karachi, here on Thursday.

Pointing out the huge budget deficit, he asserted that if government is able to collect even the 50 percent of the tax potential of this country, then our major economic problems could easily be solved. He further said that the roots of current economic malaise are not only bad economic policies but it has much to do with the political culture of the country. This elitist political culture is the main reason behind all the socio-economic problems.

He predicted that this current IMF package is bound to fail like the previous packages. That is because of unwillingness of government to bring substantive changes in fiscal and monetary policy. He mentioned the election manifesto of PML (N) and said that none of the promises were fulfilled in this year’s budget.

Siddiqui criticised IMF for implementing imperialist agenda of US in developing countries. Those policies are meant for weakening domestic sector by imposing unreasonable conditions, which don’t reflect the socio-economic realities of the target country. He recommended dealing with energy crisis on emergency basis by relying on indigenous resources. Prof Dr Moonis Ahmar of Department of International Relations said in his concluding remarks that our politicians should get rid of VVIP
culture and lead the nation by example. staff report