FORMER Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin, who has been nominated as chief convener of the Economic Advisory Council (EAC) has expressed strong concerns over the management and direction of the economy, saying no one is clear about which way the economy is headed.
Speaking in a television programme, he claimed that the economy was rudderless and the captain of the ship will have to be strong otherwise the ship will not sail forward.
The observations made and arguments given by the former minister are worth consideration as these have also been agitating the minds of the people and remained hot topics of discussion during the last two and a half years.
There is weight in his remarks that the economy is directionless as the major reforms that the incumbent undertook during this period in the name of putting the economy on right track have produced no positive results except an alarming increase in the cost of living.
The factors, highlighted by him, that led to the present-day situation include bad bargaining with IMF and acceptance of conditions which badly affected the economy and the people; massive devaluation of rupee; frequent increase in electricity and gas tariff and unrealistically high interest rate.
Tarin, who is expert on financial and economic matters lamented that the economy suffered serious damage after the interest rate was allowed at over 13pc and exchange rate at Rs165.
He said similarly by increasing the tariffs of power, gas and fuel, the demand has virtually been eroded, leading to economic stagnation and massive unemployment.
The issues flagged by him including harassment of businessmen and bureaucrats by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) are no secret but the self-denial mode has not allowed correction of the course.
One hopes Tarin would help further crystallize all these issues and based on professional findings in the EAC, concrete policy actions would be proposed and implemented by the Government.
Such advisory bodies were also formed in the past but their findings and recommendations were mostly consigned to dustbin and this should not happen now if we are genuinely interested to put the economy on right track and provide relief to the masses.
All this should be done on a fast-track basis as conservative official estimates also put inflation at 9.1%, breaking backbones of the masses.
