PAKISTAN has reiterated its commitment to responsible economic management and modernizing key public sectors in line with global standards.
Assurances to this effect were given by Federal Minister for Power Sardar Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari and Minister of State for Finance Bilal Azhar Kayani in a joint briefing to members of the diplomatic community aimed at apprising them of implementation of the IMF-backed reform agenda. The Ministers emphasized that these reforms are part of a strategic, forward-looking national agenda designed to enhance competitiveness, transparency and resilience. The participants welcomed the comprehensive and candid briefing and acknowledged the government’s resolve to deliver meaningful and sustainable reform.
The briefing is surely yet another demonstration of the government’s commitment to the process of reforms and appreciation of the participants deepened the impression that this agenda has wider global support as has also been confirmed by repeated statements of multilateral donors. The Minister for Power deserves credit for marketing investment potential of the power sector which is otherwise facing serious challenges. It was after a long time that the most relevant government personality laid focus on the need for investment to modernize the system and to ensure quality service for consumers. Awais Leghari invited global power utility companies, investors and industry leaders to explore investment prospects, particularly in areas such as grid modernization, renewable energy integration, distribution efficiency and energy services. These are areas of concern for consumers who face unscheduled outages because of grid faults, age-old transformers and the worn out distribution system. Some steps have been taken to reform working of discos and as a consequence their losses have come down making the road to privatization smoother and more realistic but unfortunately the focus has only been on compliant discos while regions notorious for massive power theft remain untouched for decades. This is also evident from the fact that the first batch of three restructured discos slated for privatization early next year are considered efficient while those constituting a real burden on the system would require reforms that the successive governments could not implement. Minister Kayani offered a data-backed assessment of Pakistan’s macroeconomic landscape, highlighting a shift from stabilization to sustained reform. The hairman FBR elaborated on the FBR Transformation Plan, a comprehensive reform framework based on three pillars—people, process and technology. The reform agenda includes digitization of invoicing, production monitoring systems, AI-based audit tools, national goods tracking, improved taxpayer services and strengthened integration with financial data sources. These measures aim to broaden the tax base, increase transparency and simplify compliance. No doubt, these reforms have led to a substantial increase in tax collection as tax-to-GDP has increased from eight to over ten percent and the phenomenon is attributable mainly to better enforcement. There are still many areas and sectors where loopholes result in huge tax evasion and losses and hopefully the process of digitization of FBR and its integration with different sectors of the national economy will help take care of this aspect. It is also known to all that the government is implementing a process of restructuring of the ministries and departments with prospects of savings on administrative expenditure while pension reforms also have the potential to produce similar results. However, there are also indications of clear contradictions in the policies and actions of the government as highlighted by its decision to hire in a wholesale manner heads of important institutions from the private sector on lucrative terms. Numerous instances strengthen apprehensions that induction of the people from the private sector is unlikely to improve efficiency and instead proves a burden on national exchequer. There are also question marks on utilization of the increased tax collection and savings when the government is shy of spending on social sectors and developmental activities are shrinking.
