This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed “Budget FY22: Tarin faces Herculean task” carried by the newspaper yesterday. According to writers, Huzaima Bukhari and Dr Ikramul Haq, “Challenges faced by the new finance minister are grim and daunting, but he looks determined to follow the agenda of growth. The issue of stabilisation versus growth will continue vis-à-vis the IMF and the World Bank presenting their prescriptions.”

The writers, in my view, are overly enamoured of the new finance minister. But they are right. It is a fact that Tarin can’t wave a magic wand and strike a delicate balance between IMF’s stipulations/conditionalities and government’s higher growth objective just like that. Producing a budget in the midst of woeful or adverse conditions will surely be a Herculean task for him to stabilise the economy in its current state on the one hand and fuel growth on the other. We wish him best of luck.

Saleem Rahman (Karachi)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021