It is not really surprising, though still a matter of grave concern, that the country’s total outstanding debt and liabilities reached a historic level of $113.8 billion by the end of September 2020. This subject has been beaten to death so strongly in this space that it is no longer necessary to get into the specifics of just which government borrowed how much and for what unproductive purpose. But suffice it to say that the people’s chosen representatives, one after the other, seem to prefer to run the country on the borrow-to-function model instead of instituting a much needed policy overhaul that would one day add value to our exports and help us earn precious foreign exchange on our own instead of forever relying on outside loans.
And such are the fruits of living beyond one’s means that sooner or later you get caught in a cycle of having to borrow more only to pay back interest on maturing loans; while the principle, of course, stays as it was and will also have to be paid back. A time will come when even this way of living form day to day will become impossible and international financial institutions (IFIs) will begin to doubt our ability to pay back all the money that we have borrowed and just turn off the tap. We are already in the initial stages of just such a trend. For if the government does not cave into the Fund’s conditions, and refuses to raise the electricity tariff as well as other taxes, then we might not get the rest of the bailout loan that we so desperately need. These are understandably hard times for the government. It has no idea what to do about the mountain of debt or how to keep the exogenous injections flowing, or what to say to the Saudis and Chinese to get them to roll their loans over yet again, or even how to control out-of-control prices and unemployment at home. It may well be justified in blaming previous administrations for all the problems we face today, but that means nothing to common people who bought into its promises of change and integrity and now find themselves suffering because of it. If anything, debt has multiplied faster in PTI’s tenure so far than its predecessors and all this is coming out when the economy is already struggling, the opposition is up in arms, and people want to finally see the change they were promised.
