This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed “A cruel IMF programme” carried by the newspaper on Friday. That the writer, Omer Javed, is prolific and far-sighted economist a fact that has found its best expression from his profound argument that he has advanced to expose the cruelty of the IMF programme.

According to him, for example, “Was it Pakistan’s fault that a global supply shock and even before tightly managed and low-capacity oil sector had overall fed into causing a huge supply shock, increased prices of commodities to decades high levels, and that supply shock stands accentuated in the wake of war in Ukraine by Russia?|”

That Pakistan has become a perennial borrower is a fact. And this business of borrowing is not without challenges. It is important to note that successive governments have pushed the country into recognising that it must accept a deal, however cruel and unjust, because it is the only one available to it. It is therefore needless to say that successive governments have literally reduced the country into a beggar and we all know that beggars can’t be choosers.

Iffat Jahan (Karachi)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022