Fiscal data manipulation destroying country’s economic statistics: economists

Senior economists at a pre-budget seminar held at Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) on Thursday came hard on what they called “the manipulation of fiscal data” on part of both the government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which was destroying the country’s economic statistics.

They demanded of the government that the budget for the coming fiscal year 2016-17 should be based on long-term economic priorities of the nation with human development and wellbeing as the main focus. Mere balancing of payments was by no means the objective of economic planning and policy making. The budget entails the overall policy direction and should not be taken merely as a sheet-balancing or accounting exercise.

The keynote speaker, Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan, Dean School of Social Sciences & Humanities, National University of Science & Technology (NUST), and former economic advisor to the federal government, alleged that the IMF had turned a blind eye on the economic failures of the present government.

The event was chaired by Fasih Uddin, former chief economist, Planning Commission of Pakistan, which was also addressed by former federal secretary Masud Daher. Both are also members of IPS-National Academic Council.

Criticising the macroeconomic policies of the government, especially its austerity measures and spending priorities, Dr Khan claimed that the country would be faced with a deadly debt trap by 2018-19 as a result of the measures taken by the financial managers of the present regime. Had the international oil prices not gone down since June 2014, the government would have had added at least eight billion dollars debt on the country by now, he added.

He was of the view that the actual GDP growth falls hardly in the vicinity of three per cent to 3.7 per cent contrary to the government’s claims to heading towards a growth rate of around six per cent, which according to him, were based on distorted facts and manipulated data.

Dr Khan also projected that actual fiscal deficit would amount to over eight per cent of the GDP and the government’s economic managers were tarrying to arrive at facts agreed – after several revisions – with the IMF by playing with the actual economic indicators.

He added that a mammoth amount of Rs 178 billion was being accounted for as “statistical discrepancy.” He also calculated the average growth in large scale manufacturing (LSM) and agriculture at 3.2 per cent and 2.8 per cent respectively, during the past three years of economic management by the present regime. “Agriculture growth will remain stagnant this year,” he forecasted.