Government lacks economic vision: Hussain Mohi-ud-Din Qadri

Hussain Mohi-ud-Din Qadri, president of Federal Council of Minhaj ul Quran International, has said that Pakistan continues to be plagued by economic instability. People are getting increasingly disenchanted with the present arrangement. He said that given the present levels of inflation and hike, it has become difficult for common man to make both ends meet. Instead of mobilizing indigenous resources, our economic managers have taken up the easy route of extending a begging bowl before the IMF.

Hussain Mohi-ud-Din Qadri expressed these views while delivering a speech to the University students on the subject of ‘Economic Challenges and our Response’ yesterday in Lahore. He said that our previous experience with the IMF bailout programmes had manifestly shown that it was a way of delaying the inevitable but at a greater economic cost to the poor man. He criticized the recently announced budget, saying that it did not delineate any roadmap to boost growth and develop industry. Besides, agriculture, which employs the maximum of workforce also failed to get policy attention.

Hussain Mohi-ud-Din Qadri said that financing the budget deficit from such sources as foreign aid, grants and loan was simply a bad economic policy. The government should have curtailed the budget deficit by broadening the tax net by taxing the big land lords, increasing tax to GDP ratio and putting a freeze on non-developmental activities. He urged the government to end duplication of official business by doing away with surplus ministries.