Where did MoF go so very wrong?
Prime Minister Imran Khan has replaced Asad Umar as the finance minister for one would assume poor performance. The question is how and when did he perform poorly? The state…
The GDP growth this year
The budgeted Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate was an unrealistic 5 percent (10 June 2022), downgraded to 3 percent subsequent to the devastating floods and in recent reports the…
Has Ishaq Dar lost his magic?
Statesmanship demands maintaining a delicate balance between economy and politics. Unfortunately, the scales world over have become excessively skewed towards politics. Last week, British Prime Minister Truss announced her intention…
Dar should tread carefully
PML-N’s (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s) finance czar and rupee-stabiliser, Ishaq Dar, is back in the saddle. Many describe him as Pakistan’s economic messiah, while others are worried that he will wash…
Petrol, people and policy
The ‘tough’ and ‘bold’ decisions that this government was being urged to take are finally here. In fact, ‘shock therapy’ would be the more appropriate term to describe the government’s…
Lies, damned lies and statistics
Mark Twain wrote, “figures often beguile me particularly when I have the arranging of them myself, in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and…
Damned if Shehbaz does and damned if…
Shehbaz Sharif won two more votes than the required 172 to become the country’s Prime Minister on 11 April and has ever since struggled to not only convince his own…
The state of Pakistan’s economy
Miftah Ismail, the finance minister during the tail end of the PML-N tenure under the prime ministership of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, referred to the 28 February relief package announced by…
First leverage then renegotiation
The Khan administration maintains that a change in government will not reverse the rise in price of any single item – be it in the category of administered prices (including…
The govt and the IMF
Prime Minister Imran Khan and Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin took to twitter to claim victory soon after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Board of Directors approved the release of the…
