More of the same?
As one may recall, while the budget for the Financial Year 2011-12 was being presented in the National Assembly, the opposition members from the PML-N had presented the finance minister…
Numbers from a hat
Sleight of hand, a rose-tinted view of revenues and external inflows and a hopefully supportive State Bank: the budget, long on rhetoric and short on action (to reflect a road…
The willing lender
Pakistan and the IMF have started discussions for a fresh round of IMF financing. This will be the twelfth IMF programme in over two decades. Pakistan holds the unique distinction…
Dar didn”t mention data manipulation
Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar referred to some statistics, specifically unemployment, released by the Economic Survey 2012-13 as ''politically expedient'' and therefore not credible. Unemployment rate of 6 percent in…
Budget blues
“It's a budget written by bureaucrats for bureaucrats” goes the refrain in the business community. No sooner had the finance minister finished his speech, the Karachi Chamber of Commerce was…
A budget with a road map
The finance minister, Senator Ishaq Dar, presented the first budget of the newly elected government on June 12, 2013. The budget has attracted mixed reactions, which was expected. Some are…
An ambitious budget
Turning to current expenditure, debt servicing is expected to increase by Rs125 billion, defence by Rs57 billion, grants by Rs3 billion and civil administration by Rs23 billion. On the other…
Bullish on Pakistan
ALTHOUGH the Karachi Stock Exchange has risen over 50pc over the last year, financial analysts have not rushed to declare Pakistan a `bull market`. The reasons for their caution are…
Poverty status: Another dilemma for the new government
Announcing an official higher or lower poverty number by the country sends the following kinds of signals to the international stakeholders, ie, foreign governments, multilateral and bilateral donors, international NGOs…
Budget – a long-term view
There are certain yardsticks to judge the quality, veracity, authenticity and efficacy of any thing related to any human activity. Similarly there are yardsticks to evaluate a budget presented by…
