The article highlights the main issues that led to economic exacerbation of Pakistan.

Pakistan's Economic Dilemma

Kashif

It is believed that in 1947, when Pakistan came into being, one USD equaled 3.31 PKR. With the passage of time, and limitless dependency on the foreign powers, a huge difference was in the cards. At that time, incessant exploiters did not pay heed to the consequences these irreversible mistakes would cause. As a result, we are now in 2022 and dollar is flaring up (against PKR) like a rocket launched by NASA. But what led to such deterioration?

Policy making is one of the challenging and most important factors in a state’s agenda. Most of its future depends on the policies it formulates. Pakistan suffered from poor policies that led to its economic collapse.

A crucial reason for Pakistan’s economic predicament is corruption. Corrupt individuals are present at every level of the governance system. Whether it is an ordinary citizen, or an individual of high status and authority, everyone prioritize his own interests.

Corruption is something that affects every country around the world. To get rid of it, a proper system of check and balance must be imposed by the government. Pakistan lacks a proper system that keeps an eye on the institutions and individuals. There are institutions that keep track of suspicious activities of the people in governance in Pakistan, but when those institutions which have been assigned the task of supervision of corrupt individuals, commit corruption themselves. For instance, the incident of Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Javed Iqbal, who was found guilty of inappropriate conversation with a female in a leaked audio.

Since the inception of Pakistan, a great chunk of budget is given to the Defence. No doubt Defence of a country is an important aspect, but this must be remembered that budget must be divided in an equal proportion. If Defence sector of America, Russia, China, Iran, or India is getting a enormous amount of capital, it is true that these countries, according to GDP ranking, are among highest in the world. Pakistan’s GDP per capita stands at almost 1250 USD which is less than all those countries mentioned above. According to 2022 fiscal year budget, Health sector of Pakistan got only 40 billion PKR while Education getting only 65 billion PKR. Defence sector was allocated 1.52 trillion PKR. It clearly shows an unjust distribution of the budget.

Although it might not affect the economy of Pakistan directly, as botched dissemination of budget or poor policies do, but still it is a factor that aggravates Pakistan’s reputation on International level. Financial Action Task Force (FATF), is an intergovernmental organization based in France that develop policies to fight Terrorism and money laundering agendas around the world, had added Pakistan to its ‘grey list’, limiting its relations with other world powers by certain sanctions. It was Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and other factions that led to such defamation of Pakistan on International level. Pakistan is close to escape from FATF’s ‘grey list’ as of 2022.

Pakistan needs a proper economic planning and policies for at least next 20 years to get out of the clutches of constantly rising inflation. It must revise its provincial and federal level corruption, budget distribution must also be revised. Terrorist organizations must be dealt with iron hand. If all these changes are not made immediately, Pakistan might go default as Sri Lanka. Every citizen of Pakistan must take part.

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