New Delhi, May 1 (IANS) Pakistan is confronting its most serious fuel‑price shock in over half a century, which could trigger a cascade of economic problems and undermine Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government, a new report has said.The report from Aljazeera said soaring global oil costs have hit Pakistan particularly hard because the country is heavily dependent on imported energy and remittances from Gulf states, along with an “already precarious balance-of-payments position.” The West…
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Islamabad, April 29 (IANS) The implementation of some regulatory needs for small-scale solar systems, followed by a decision rollback, showcases lack of coherent vision in Pakistan for transition to renewable energy, a report has stated. “The rollback of licensing requirements and fees for solar generation capacity of 25kW or below exposes an uncertain policymaking process that, rather than following a long-term framework, reacted first to cost pressures as consumers shifted away from the grid, …
Islamabad, April 23 (IANS) A lady health worker from Muzaffargarh city of Pakistan’s Punjab province requesting country’s Chief Justice to conduct an independent probe into the killing of her two sons in an alleged police ‘encounter’ demonstrates the eroding trust of people in provincial authorities to deliver justice. Her statement about police torture and the subsequent killing of her sons in a “so-called encounter” is not an isolated case, a report has stated. “It reflects a continuing pa…
New Delhi, April 12 (IANS) The World Bank, the IMF, tax consultants, and commentators frequently assert that Pakistan suffers from a “tax gap” of seven to nine per cent of GDP.This gap in the shortfall between what is collected and what the law, ideally enforced, would yield, and the metric implies that this shortfall is a result of citizens not paying the taxes that are due from them. This narrative favours the tax collector and policymaker to deflect their own mistakes and increased coercion t…
New Delhi, April 8 (IANS) While the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked Pakistan to remove subsidy on diesel as keeping prices of fuels below the market price violates the conditions that have been fixed for its loans to the cash-strapped country, Islamabad has, in brazen defiance of the norms, gone ahead with reducing the subsidy on petrol as well.“The prime minister’s Friday night dash to slash the petrol levy — undoing a massive price hike meant to fully pass on the global incre…
New Delhi, March 26 (IANS) As the Gulf conflict continues, the disruption in global fertiliser markets has again exposed the weaknesses of Pakistan’s farm input security, according to local media reports.While domestic capacity has insulated Pakistan from the worst effects of the urea shock, the same cannot be said for diammonium phosphate, where reliance on imports leaves the farm economy vulnerable, according to an article in the Dawn newspaper.Local production in the case of urea has helped…
New Delhi, March 19 (IANS) Pakistan’s fragile economy faces a major risk from the US-Israel war with Iran, as the country is heavily dependent on imported fuel and energy prices have shot up due the conflict which has spread across the Middle East countries.If the war drags on and energy prices remain elevated, Pakistan could once again find itself facing the kind of macroeconomic stress that has repeatedly disrupted its growth trajectory. Any volatility in global energy prices could hit GDP, …
New Delhi, March 6 (IANS) The mismanagement of Pakistan as a polity by its ruling elite has landed the country in periodic crises, which have been as much political as economic, and the resulting economic turmoil has necessitated 25 IMF programmes, each of which has compounded the country’s structural problems rather than providing a pathway to sustainable growth and development, a Pakistani media report said.The latest example is the ongoing programme where the IMF has endorsed the government…
New Delhi, Feb 12 (IANS) A structural issue responsible for perpetuating Pakistan’s dependence on the IMF is its failure to control expenditure, which has spiralled, at both federal and provincial levels, via salary increases far exceeding inflation for the civil, judicial, and military bureaucracies alongside expanding vehicle fleets, luxury housing, plush offices, overseas junkets, and discretionary budgets, often without mandates, sunset clauses or performance tests, according to an article…
New Delhi, Feb 2 (IANS) The Pakistan government has become addicted to IMF borrowing much like a drug addict and refuses to extricate itself from the self-made problem of creating cycles of foreign exchange shortages and bare sufficiency with IMF loans, according to a new report.These are accompanied by fiscal profligacy as seen in the government’s inability to contain needless expenditures and raise sufficient revenues to keep its debt at sustainable levels, according to an article by former …