During the last couple of months, since the assumption of power by the new government, various reasons have been used to justify the decrease in revenue collection in the current fiscal year. There is no denying that the government adopted an ailing economy, however, any contender for power should be well aware of the problems plaguing the state and should have concrete frameworks of dealing with it rather than running on a trial and error basis, which is not only inefficient but ends up dismantling the procedures before and resulting in a very slow paced growth. At this point, the only area generating revenue is the import bill which increased by 5.5 percent in the period of July 2018 to March 2019.
The government has been given a fair trial period but their optics seem to be limited only to engaging in rhetoric politics when it comes to the economy. Gone is the time period of blaming mainstream parties because if the government does not have solutions to these problems, the blame game will not take them further. The last couple of months have significantly shaped the opinion of the average voter which now feels that the government is neglecting the most impoverished sections of the society due to the increase in prices of common goods despite promises of human development.
The factors at play, international oil prices, the fluctuation in the price of dollar along with clauses of the IMF bailout, have always been at play, even for previous governments. The current government now needs to provide a concrete plan of bridging these gaps because the current deficit makes it next to impossible to work on development projects, which have taken a back seat ever since the PTI government came into power. The failure to collect revenue can only be attributed to the government’s lack of homework on the situation and promising more than it could tackle.