Country’s economy: a word of advice

This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed “Bloated revenue projections” carried by the newspaper yesterday. The writer, Dr Hafiz A Pasha, is at his best again in the moments of Budget 2017-18 season. He, for example, has raised a profound point: “The truly remarkable achievement during the current fiscal year will be the proposed containment of the fiscal deficit in the last quarter, April to June. Already, in the first nine months the deficit had reached 3.9% of the GDP, and exceeded the annual deficit target. It is expected that in the last quarter, the fiscal deficit will be restricted to only 0.3% of the GDP, such that the annual deficit is 4.2% of the GDP.”

The problem, however, is that the government is showing utmost contempt to his sane advice and recommendations. Only recently, finance minister Ishaq Dar described all independent economists as ‘spin doctors’. A word of advice for Mr Dar: an all-mouth-and-no-trousers approach to country’s economy will get you nowhere.

KARACHI NAQI ZAFAR