Country’s defence minister and veteran politician Khawaja Asif deserves praise for telling the tough truth. According to media reports, he has said that the country has already defaulted. Speaking at a private college ceremony the other day, he reportedly said, “you may have learnt that Pakistan is going bankrupt or that a default or meltdown is taking place.

It has already taken place. We are living in a bankrupt country.” No doubt it is a dangerous truth for people to know. It is the whole truth without omission or alteration, but public can learn half but not the whole truth. Although the prime minister or the finance minister is yet to concede that the country has defaulted, the situation is too grim or alarming, to say the least.

It is fact that the country has so far not defaulted on any of its obligations in relation to external debt repayments.

But the too precarious condition of the foreign exchange reserves, a woeful decline in remittance and export proceeds alike, negative growth in FDI, and the growing ambivalence of country’s “friends” about the unprecedented challenges facing the country paint a bleak picture of a terribly ill or beleaguered economy, which is in ICU since last year.

Be that as it may, Khawaja Asif of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has put the cat among the pigeons through his sovereign default claim.

Shazia Mirza (Karachi)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023