Future without vision?

Pakistan’s new budget has exposed an uncomfortable truth yet again of the ruling structure in Islamabad driving key policies without a clear vision for the future.

A plan to collect a staggering 27 percent more in taxes during the next financial year, as Pakistan’s economy promises to contract in real terms, marks just one such glaring contradiction.

The tax collection target not only presents evidence of a deep disconnect between fact and fiction. It also comes as the latest example of a regime which remains unable and unwilling to embrace a reality check.

Other gaps include a failure to carve out a set of bold new policies to address increasingly dangerous challenges, notably cutting the mounting losses across Pakistan’s largely anaemic public sector and devising a solution to the energy crisis. At the same time, urgent action to tackle the crisis surrounding Pakistan’s agriculture sector has become more pressing than ever before.

Together, the fate of these critical fronts and others will decide the future of Pakistan’s internal stability and the country’s place in its surrounding region and beyond, in the months and years to come.

The budget has drawn out a disconnect between prevailing conditions and Pakistan’s increasingly powerful reality underlining a rudderless ruling structure. The government’s blatantly obvious failure to embrace a badly needed reality check has eventually made the coronavirus challenge, the largest pitfall in Pakistan’s 73-year history, increasingly insurmountable.

Whatever prompted Prime Minister Imran Khan to refuse a tight lockdown early on has only made this calamity larger and increasingly out of control over time. The failure to vet incoming returnees from Iran and the Gulf region has had an explosive outcome as the number of coronavirus victims grew rapidly over time through raging secondary infections.

Meanwhile, a policy failure in tackling demands from influential lobbies, ranging from those backing the Taraweeh congregation prayers during the holy month of Ramazan to commercial interests lobbying for resumption of businesses prior to Eid, has added to the adversity. Across Pakistan today, the government’s already weak writ has become increasingly questionable.

Going forward, the coming festival of ‘Eidul Azha’ celebrated with the slaughter of animals, has created a public health nightmare year after year. This year however, conditions are set to aggravate further as Pakistan remains caught in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic. A failure to preempt the vast public health hazards from uncontrolled sacrifice of animals runs the risk of adding to the prevailing public health crisis.

And not too far in the future lies the holy month of ‘Muharram’ dedicated to commemorating the martyrdom of Hazrat Imam Hussain (a.s) and his followers in Karbala, southern Iraq, more than 13 centuries ago. Across the world, the occasion is marked by Muslims with events ranging from gatherings for mourning – the ‘majalis’ – to street turnouts or ‘juloos’. A failure to secure those events will only aggravate the prevailing crisis.

With the coronavirus today appearing out of control across Pakistan and a government largely inept in tackling it in good time, prospects for the future must look further bleak. A collapse of Pakistan’s economy in the near future runs the risk of instability all around with unpredictable economic and political consequences. But a failure to steer Pakistan’s economy out of its crisis phase also carries long-term risks. The coming decade presents Pakistan with both opportunities and challenges.

Ongoing work on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has created grounds for Pakistan to link up with the world’s fastest growing economy. Even though China is wrapped up in the coronavirus crisis along with the rest of the world, its likely that an eventual solution will lift the world out of this turmoil.

For Pakistan however, a promise for the future tied to CPEC must go in tandem with the country’s success in tackling prevailing challenges. Over the next decade, Pakistan will also be increasingly pressed to maintain its deterrent against India which in recent years has become one of the world’s largest spenders on military hardware.

A feeble economy without urgent reforms in areas like ending the hemorrhage in the public sector or ending the financial bloodletting in the energy sector presents no guarantee for a secure and prosperous Pakistan.

The writer is an Islamabad-based journalist who writes on political and economic affairs.

Email: farhanbokhari@gmail.com