THE financial crunch is pressing Pakistan too hard for the leadership to leave it to the flow of events to abate, and has compelled it to seek assistance from whatever source possible, including the International Monetary Fund, whose clutches are notoriously debilitating for the recipient country. There is an urgent need to rethink the government's extravagant ways and cut expenditure on fancy, non-development projects. General Ashfaq Kayani's decision to halt the construction work on a new building to house GHQ at Islamabad is a step in the right direction. The situation demands that the Army high command also reviews perks and privileges that have come to be associated with the assignments of military officials. Reportedly, about 10 percent of the work has been completed on the GHQ project that was, to start with, totally unnecessary and, when conceived, had come under a lot of criticism both from the public and the media. Since the Army already had its headquarters at Rawalpindi, all that was required was to do alterations or renovation of the building to meet the changed needs. There was no point in burdening the state exchequer with a huge expense of Rs 60 billion in a country whose economy was not based on sound footing. But President Musharraf, who never stopped gloating over the turnaround that his policies had effected in the country's economic situation, would not listen to objections and allotted a prime piece of land to the project. However, the economic house of cards that he put together has turned out to be too ramshackle to sustain the slightest shock, and experts are talking of days before it could crash unless buttressed by a heavy dose of money. One would very much wish that the current dire straits could inspire a radical change in the mindset of government functionaries, which deems a lavish lifestyle as a sine qua non of the high positions they hold. The officials down the ladder and the rest of society imperceptibly try to copy them. Palatial houses, expensive limousines, exclusive aeroplanes and other luxuries, wrongly considered necessary for the discharge of duty, ought to give way to austere living. Otherwise, the harsh conditionalities that the IMF would inevitably impose on the release of funds would be too hard for us to pay back. But a real change of mindset by shelving non productive state ventures and expenditure of the borrowed amount on profitable infrastructural schemes would enable the nation to stand on its feet and get out of the IMF trap. There is need for full dedication to the task of putting our economic house in order.