Just like previous governments, after approaching nearly two years in power, the PTI government oversees large import bills for essential industrial requirements, weak dollar earnings on exports, weak revenues from industry and large rates of unemployment. Between July 2019 and March 2020, the PTI government has overseen the import of $4.35 billion of machinery, $1.8 billion of iron and steel and $1 billion of transport machinery, whose combined value is…

Just like the previous corrupt governments, the PTI government has drowned Pakistan in interest based debt, depriving the poor of their right from the state treasury. Rs. 2,442 billion has been spent on interest payments by March 2020, which will rise by June to around 2,900 billion, which is a huge chunk of the Rs. 7,000 billion total budget and more than half of the revenues generated by the State.

The federal government and opposition parties have now locked horns over ‘amendment’ to the Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment. In April 2010, at the time of the original passing of this amendment, with the consent of almost every party present in the parliament, the people of Pakistan were assured that their problems would be resolved speedily, because more authority and resources would be available to the provinces.

The Pakistan power sector circular debt, approaching two trillion Rupees, along with interest payments of 2.8 trillion rupees, have broken the spine of the entire economy. Only now that is has crippled the country, has the Bajwa-Imran regime been compelled to re-negotiate the terms of the power sector agreements.