Wilting under tonnage

The country is already under tremendous stress due to a barrage of different crises when Shaukat Tarin, PM's Adviser on Finance, just raised the ante a bit more by creating panic about our finances. On October 24, 2008, he made headlines in national press with a statement that we need $4. 5 billions within 30 days or else. The thing is, our debt is already piling up fast. If he expedites this process further, we will be buried under debt. Our foreign exchange reserves are going down by hundreds of millions of dollars every month due an ever-widening trade deficit. If we get $4.5 billion within a month and at the same time keep on importing the things we could live without, this money will be used up within no time.

What are we going to do then? Will we run around again like a headless chicken looking to get more loans? It would not be a wise thing to do. We need to shape our policies to enhance industrial growth and self-sufficiency, and to turn the current trade imbalance with other countries in our favor, rather than mindlessly piling up more and more loans. This way we will have a healthy economy and our financial problems will also be sorted out. -SYED AQEEL SARWAR, Lahore, via e-mail, October 28.