Under the thumb of the IMF, another budget has been presented by our government. And this has gone on for years. Each year, men in designer suits juggle trillions of rupees in air-conditioned rooms. They say they’re doing it for all of us but at the end of the day, it goes to the benefit of other immaculately groomed people shuttling between weather-proof offices in their weather-proof SUVs and sedans.
Those stretched too thin to survive under the sun, and those dangling in the middle, are expected to be grateful for the crumbs of patronage and mercy thrown their way, wrapped in attractive phrases of a rhetoric that’s not even funny anymore. Even if we were to accept that ‘economy’ is the magic potion that cures all ills, this particular IMF-brand of economy is clearly a recipe for perpetual sickness. As if the brand did not stand on the grave of many poor and rich economies, the IMF arrogantly harps on the same crooked wisdom and pushes its failed prescriptions down our parched throats. Despite the harsh conditions, our leaders keep returning to the pied piper for tranches in dollars, without which they wouldn’t know how to breathe. The cruel hypocrisy is chilling.
The IMF knows that its nicely wrapped blankets carry germs to make us terminally ill. That’s why they were put there in the first place. And our governments don’t really believe that the loans would do us any good. But it suits them both to play along in plush conference rooms and pretend that it’s all meant to work one day. And that it is our only option.
Despite the hyped-up economic wizards bandied about by the PML-N government and its claims about having what it takes to turn the economy around, the best that it could do was go around in circles within the IMF trap. Clearly, the collective economic wisdom of the government boils down to implementing the IMF-vision as good managers with no ideas of their own.
Ironically, it is not the IMF but us, the citizens of Pakistan, for whom the government is supposed to manage the economy. Besides, our slavery to the IMF is not as inevitable as the IMF and our leaders make it out to be. It is possible to build an economy based on the enterprise and hard work of Pakistanis and the wealth of resources at our disposal. It is possible to prosper as a society. But then, it doesn’t seem to be the goal, neither for the devious IMF nor for our leaders resolutely digging a mass-grave for us all.
Envisaging a different approach to economy and prosperity is obviously too hard, and too risky, for the gurus running our IMF-sponsored economy. They’d have to venture out of their air-conditioned universe and acquaint themselves with farmers working under the June sun and blue-collar workers laboring in hot and humid factory halls, truck drivers and postmen, nurses and clerks, teachers and sanitary workers, all those people brushed under the plush carpets of rooms with beautiful views. A brush with a child mining a heap of garbage or with a woman sweeping someone’s floor, will dirty their fancy clothes.
Those juggling trillions of dollars have no place in their well-decorated rooms, or their hearts, for the man selling sherbet on a rehri or those drinking it, for school-children hanging from heavily over-loaded rickshaws or those without schools. Of course, they feel the pain of exporters and investors, stock holders and corporations, businessmen and industrialists; these are the engines of economy for them. This privileged lot inhabits the same universe as the managers of our economy.
So, amongst other things, our finance minister reduced the corporate tax rate from 33 percent to 20 percent for the next three years, gave concession to stock brokers and investors and told us that state-owned organizations will be sold to corporations to raise funds for the development of the people. He did not say that much of that development will come in the shape of projects and schemes designed to formalize political bribery and patronage.
In his budget speech, the Finance Minister proudly declared that his government’s policies have “managed to put the national economy back on the track which is widely acknowledged by the international community and Pakistan is being considered as the second most lucrative place for foreign investment across the globe”. Really?
In fact, even if we’d managed to make ourselves so lucrative, is that all there is to it? Big deal if the ‘international community’ is happy. It might be good news for the government and its addiction for borrowed dollars, dollars that flow freely only at the pleasure of this ‘international community’. But is it really a reason to celebrate? We know who and who makes up this so-called international community and why wouldn’t they be happy with a government that’s faithfully following instructions?
We know what makes this ‘international community’ of big dons angry; the exercise of even a modicum of independence. Don’t we see the people of Ukraine paying the price for refusing a deal with the IMF? Their elected president had to flee the country. And this is the risky bit; the threat of punishment that lurks in the shadows of happy smiles, green pastures and certificates of good performances.
We have seen that the IMF and its sisters of big finance, their extended family of corporations and the NGOs funded by them, the cabal of rich governments referred to as the west and their allies, their intelligence agencies and the militant mercenaries enlisted by them, their fodder-like militaries and co-opted media, they all join forces like hyenas to claw out any semblance of independence in countries they still view as their colonies. They made examples out of Saddam and Gaddafi and they are busy subverting more than a few governments as we speak.
What makes the ‘international community’ mad are leaders who try to break the exploitative stranglehold of the dollar-based IMF-brand of economy imposed by this imperial clan. Forget about the courage to risk their anger, our leaders don’t even wish to understand what’s wrong with the brand they peddle.

 The writer is a freelance columnist.

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