Between Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s enunciation that the IMF was not being fair to Pakistan and the same old helplessness presented by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Pakistan remains perpetually trapped in the sticky quagmire as the hour hand continues to dash against its odds. The inflationary environment persists but international prescriptions refuse to work their magic. In the latest attempt to woo over the last resort, speculations are rife about the summary of yet another surcharge on electricity consumers to the Power Regulatory Authority. Said to recover Rs 335 billion in revenue for the government, this would be slammed on top of the additional fuel costs imposed earlier this month. The default saga has not even begun to lose vigour, let alone enter the third act, and no matter how tightly we may close our eyes to the doom and gloom, every coming day manages to erase prospects of our recovery. For quite some time, the focus has been incredibly narrow: with eyes in all corners set upon the Fund programmes to magically erase the worry lines. Those sitting at the helm of affairs have been praying in unison: just one more chance and we’ll be back on the fast track. Sadly for the cash-strapped country, crises have been raining in cats and dogs. Our fixation with the balance-of-payment predicament while doing nothing whatsoever to boost our productivity or sharpen the competitiveness of the exports has resulted in fires raging on fronts left, right and centre. The IMF roars about the complex tax measures but Trapped between heated talk of the economy registering negative GDP growth, the common man is forced to battle the dismal realities on every step of his life. May it be a depressing sigh at the fuel station or a crippling inability to live through a historic high of 40 per cent, every single indicator appears determined to knock the wind out of the middle class. In a country where about a quarter of the population already lives below the poverty line, and every staggering hike aspires to throw hundreds, if not thousands, under the bus, it is high time the government realises the opportunity cost of every single moment spent doing nothing worthwhile. *