Pakistan's Civilian-Military-Judicial Establishment Suffers From Lack of Vision: Report
Islamabad: Pakistan's civilian-military-judicial establishment suffers from intellectual poverty, lack of vision and absence of a plan, according to a report in New Pakistan.
According to the news report, the major political parties in Pakistan need to ensure that their battle for political supremacy is over and that one or more among them is the winner.
The current state of affairs isn't sustainable, the report said.
If this fight for political power continues, people's deprivations will continue to mount and so will their rage at their inability to feed their children, let alone clothe and educate them adequately, the New Pakistan said.
IMF and Washington are not the only ones backing off from providing any help to Pakistan. Even Riyadh and Abu Dhabi which have been generous in the past with their handouts are now saying Islamabad needs to first set its own house in order before any help will be forthcoming, as none of them is willing to shovel more of their petro-dollars into a black hole, according to the new report.
Geo-politik recently reported that Pakistan is currently at the beginning of the worst economic crisis since the country's formation in 1947.
According to Geo-politik, Pakistan has taken fourteen loans from the IMF thus far, but ironically none of them has ever been completed. This, therefore, raises serious questions about the capacity and capability of the Pakistani state to get out of this dead-end.
Pakistan may face a disaster like never before unless China or Saudi Arabia bail out the country. The Pakistani rupee has plummeted to PKR 250 against the dollar, and the currency had to forego 12 per cent of its value. The country's government has raised the price of petrol and diesel by Pak Rs 35 per litre.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on January 24 said that the ruling PDM alliance was ready to sacrifice its "political career for the sake of the country" and accept the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) "stringent" conditions to revive the loan programme.
According to Geo-Politik, IMF officials have held their latest negotiations via video link with Pakistan, and reports indicate that they have not shown any willingness to relax the conditions and will not release the next tranche unless the Pakistan government keeps its promises.
Pakistan upon accepting the conditions will receive USD 1.2 billion from the IMF, with possible additional funding from Saudi Arabia, UAE, China, and other institutional lenders.
The challenge for Pakistan is that it has an embarrassing history of not fulfilling IMF conditions. Pakistan's immediate economic struggles have persisted for over three years, with the suspension of IMF's bailout package in 2020, losses from floods in June 2022, and political mismanagement leading to an economic crisis in 2022, according to Geo-politik.
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