Daily Times

Now that the country has successfully navigated itself out of the dark, ominous hallway by solving the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, the state can only be requested to revert to its original job description: governance. Financial czar Ishaq Dar had made quite a phenomenal claim before strapping on the coveted finance sword.

He was to strengthen the Pak rupee (to an unbelievable 180), tame inflation and lower the interest rates while showing his apprentice what it actually took to become a master. But while the junior is trying his best to poke holes in the entire machinery from the wings of the stage, the thundering machismo of Mr Dar and his infamous Daronomics is nowhere to be found. Inflation is back to breaking new records as it burns holes through the common man’s pocket at a much faster pace.

This time, the rise (30.16 per cent as compared to last year) is being attributed to a steep hike in the prices of eggs and chicken. In the meantime, onions (with a 363.67 per cent increase) and tomatoes (with a 64.74 per cent increase) refuse to let go of their coveted titles on the all-time-high year-on-year rise list. The knee-jerk response to anything that has been going wrong with the economy by pushing the blame parcel towards the merciless flood tides assumes that things were hunky-dory until the day mother nature got up, became furious with the developed world and chose us to unleash its wrath.

We have been struggling with a never-ending queue of crises; each banging our front door open with a newly found tenacity. If it was not an undertaking to secure the blessing of the IMF, Pakistan had to give in all it had got to survive the depreciation tide. Removal of subsidies on electricity and sky-high fuel rates are also doing more than their due bit to ensure an average Pakistani never comes out of the tragic juggling of his survival and the sustenance of his dear ones. If one may dare ask, whatsoever became of procurement of wheat and everyday essentials from the neighbouring countries to ease the inflationary pressures? Restoring the status quo calls for a hail-mary-pass, but if some divine intervention helps establish a normal, functional market, Pakistan is in immediate need of reassessing the perennial structural issues with its agriculture. Failing to do so would rubberstamp the battles we are forced to fight with food crises year after year. A 220-million-strong population demands and hopes for a lot of things, but it cannot survive the power plays that pave the path for its hunger. *