- Immediate financial crisis averted, but future still uncertain
The PTI government’s eagerly awaited 100 days honeymoon period since assuming office is ending shortly, and the pundits are probably sharpening their critical faculties and their long knives in gleeful anticipation of the benchmark day. The government’s overall performance so far can be characterised variously as indecisive, outright incompetent, incongruity between words and deeds, absence of clarity of vision, no swift stream of legislative reforms, and lack of sweeping actions in practice, despite possessing the requisite political will and an agenda of change. But one area in which the PTI has been partially successful, as can be ascertained till date, is in the all-important realm of the economy, where the little matter of garnering $12 billion needed this year to ward off looming default has reportedly been achieved, with generous Saudi largesse, and more guarded Chinese assistance. But even this windfall or boon might not be sufficient (without complementary structural reforms) in the long run to avoid a stiff and discipline –inculcating (some would say, anti-people) programme of the IMF, our ‘wailing wall’, with whom talks are on-going for $6 billion. At best, the government has gained some immediate breathing space, but that is still preferable to asphyxiation.
To be fair, the PTI has, within this extremely short span, broken with the past as regards austerity, ending lavish spending and reckless extravagances, and that too of borrowed money, and can even boast of some progress in previously poorly performing areas. The balance of payments crisis is temporarily set at rest, while exports, the Achilles’ heel of the country’s ailing economy, are on the upgrade, as are another prominent necessity, inward remittances, imports are down, and the textile industry, the rainmaker of our foreign exchange earnings, has now been provided gas at regionally competitive prices, its long-standing but unheeded demand. But the unstable rupee is still performing somersaults against the dollar. The PTI minister of state for finance on Monday before the Senate, while emphasising anti-corruption drive and accountability, promised acceleration in the party’s economic reforms agenda. And hopefully, no more devious fudging of figures or guileful ‘accountancy gimmicks’, with all financial policies directed ultimately towards the common weal and welfare.