Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin was spot on when he called the energy sector the Achilles heel of the economy because unless this particular problem is sorted out there is just no way that the country can achieve the kind of high growth that the economy needs to properly take off. Prime Minister Imran Khan has also called the power sector the biggest problem faced by his administration, so all eyes have been on Shaukat Tarin ever since he was made the finance minister to see if he can pull something special out of the bag, that his predecessor couldn’t, to deal with this irritant. But it isn’t immediately clear what businessmen at the overseas chamber of commerce and industry made of his optimism, if it can be called that, that it would take at least another five to seven years to resolve this issue. Are they simply to accept the present state of affairs just based on the enthusiasm of the fourth finance minister so far in three years of the present government and expect the pain to last just another electoral cycle or so? Because this particular problem has been around and growing for a lot longer than that already. And it really helps nobody when, this late into the administration, senior ministers all the way up to the prime minister have little to say on the subject except that it’s all somebody else’s fault. Unless the government is very careful about how it postures regarding matters of supreme national importance, like how to generate and afford the energy needed to pump prime GDP growth, it will run the risk of giving the impression that it isn’t possible to fix many of the most important things because previous governments broke them. And that simply betrays a mindset that is more comfortable with tossing blame around than putting all the nuts and bolts in the right places. FM Tarin, too, spent very little time telling how long it might take to address the core problem and much longer to remind everybody that this was not this government’s doing. Energy is also at the centre of the government’s ambitious budget plans for the ongoing fiscal year. It relies on increased production, high export and improved revenue; none of which is possible if tariffs are raised even when there is precious little supply of energy. And even though FM Tarin is right that it will take a number of years to put things right, it’s still not as if businesses can just sit around and wait that long to see any results. The bottom line is that the economy needs to trim down input costs now, when there is an urgent need to grow out of our problems. And if we still make our producers and consumers wait extra-long for affordable and interrupted power, even if previous rulers must bear the responsibility for such issues, then they won’t be able to translate the government’s vision into reality anytime soon either. Let’s not forget that with time the circular debt is only growing and the burden on the common man is constantly increasing. The government should also explain the cost-benefit ratio of all the subsidies it is sprinkling on certain sectors in an attempt to increase export revenue, only to be balanced out by losses in other sectors. Meanwhile, the power sector remains plagued by the circular debt, no letup in load shedding and unannounced power failures, and constantly increasing electricity bills that are leaving ordinary Pakistanis worried about their future. *