We are an impatient nation. Many expect a messiah to swing the magic wand to bring the economy out of the mess in no time. Others are pouncing upon the opportunity from the silence of top PTI economic leadership to criticize. 
The debates and talks so far are the hangover of the political campaign PTI ran for years from the other side of the table. Thus, the only policy level directions so far seems to be only surrounded by bringing the looted money back and asking expats to send more money.
Apart from this, the policy inaction is visible which is fueling uncertainty in a crippling economy. Tax, gas, power prices and other issues all have been talk of the town in the last two weeks but nothing has come from the horse’s mouth - most things have so far appeared reactionary, indicating ineffective communication or a tool to gauge public sentiments.
The Finance Minister is keeping the cards too close to his chest or tinkering policies last minute to appease the masses. Either way - the absence and long silence is not doing any good for the overall sentiments - or it keeps the investors, financers, and media at bay to do guess work.
Take a deep breath and give the new government sometime before forming an opinion. It has been barely a month. In early days, it was all about politics of forming chief ministers, making federal cabinet, establishing the Economic Advisory Council and getting the president elected.
It is time to start deliberating on economic decisions. The irony is that the text book economic prescriptions are not aligned with the agenda of PTI. And so far the government has done which it promised. The challenge is on how to react to the need of revising up energy prices (gas and electricity) which are against the promises of bringing prices comparable to the region. Similar are the issues in taxation - what to do on WHT or what to do on indirect taxes and most importantly how to react to the generous cut offered by PLMN government on income taxes.
The uncertainty is on the anchor of the economic policy - is it to focus on growth or to work solely around stability. And the first question is what avenues of foreign funding the government has to rely on bridging gross funding gap. If the government is going to the IMF, it might have a different set of reforms than what is required if friendly countries offer enough.
The situation is not clear yet. The news is that the PM and FM are visiting KSA next week and are meeting the IMF team the following week. These two moots are critical as the decision may surface by the end of this month on what avenues of external funding the government is looking at. The other steps on energy and taxation are hinged upon the external funders and their respective demands.
These are some macro issues; but the government may soon realize that micro problems are creating macro mess; and Asad Umar may not need a battery of economists to resolve these; sector specialists in energy and taxation are going to be the key reformers.
The energy mess is too big to ignore. The capacity payments of new power plants will have an adverse impact on energy prices in coming years. Resolution of circular debt may require further rationalization of tariffs. Seeing this, NEPRA has notified electricity tariffs to increase form Rs11.5 per unit to Rs15.0 per unit. Now this is against PTI agenda; let’s see what out of box solution PTI may offer.
Similarly, gas prices have to be revised to plug in the holes - at one point the FM is inclined to provide gas at lower prices to fertilizer manufacturers and exporters based in Punjab while there is no fiscal space to do so. One way is to increase the domestic gas price to subsidize RLNG consumers - to have weighted average price of gas in the country.
The government needs a strong energy team to resolve the energy woes without too much hike in prices. The energy minister has been appointed; give him some time to ponder upon taking tough decisions.
A wiser move could be to start preparing masses on the gravity of micro and macro issues. The government may start running campaigns to make public aware of the economic mess it has inherited and then start taking decisions after procuring funds to bridge external funding gap.
This takes time. The PMLN government, which inhered one forth of current account deficit which PTI is facing today, took eight months before easing the economic pressures in Mar14. It is imperative to give PTI at least three months from now before claiming that they are clueless.
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