While the 2022-23 budget was expected to be based on a checklist from Big Brother, the slashes have been far too intense and widespread. There is a massive cost-of-living crisis breathing down everyone’s neck. And speculations about the ship heading for turbulent waters are running rife. The insatiable appetite of the merchant class is already busy spelling disaster after disaster for everyday essentials. Prices of ghee–a commodity commonly used in every household–have shot up by 256 per cent. Sadly, the government is in no position to shoo away inflation because the recently announced petroleum levy and the Gas Infrastructure Development Cess are bound to drop yet another bomb sooner rather than later. Translating instantly into skyrocketing electricity and fuel bills, these surcharges would further take all commodities under their wing (farther away from the masses’ reach). Against this backdrop, inflation is expected to be a tour de force, with eyes set on a staggering 20 per cent. Since the world around is still reeling under the calamitous conflict–usually dubbed World War III–there is no telling what further fluxes in the international prices would mean for the consumers in Pakistan. A single unfavourable move on the global charts can, undoubtedly, push millions towards abject poverty. Finance Minister Miftah Ismail’s emotional speech and noble goals cannot be discarded as hollow theatrics but aren’t the pathways to hell paved with good intentions? As if the much-decried austerity showdown in the education department was not enough of a sob tale, the government has also decided to cut the budget for the sports sector to a meaningless Rs 3.47 billion. If giving concessions to the entertainment industry is being justified due to their utility in opening a colourful window into the heart of Pakistan, sports too should have been thought of as an effective tool of soft diplomacy. Not all competitive games are showered with exceptional love and patronage like cricket. This wasn’t something that needed to be broken down for clarity to a state claiming to have risen to power after doing thorough homework. Increasing fiscal consolidation could not come at the shoulders of shuttered sectors, crippled industrial units and hapless citizens. When no one from the middle class to vulnerable segments is happy with the budgetary cocktail, one is forced to wonder whose cause is the finance ministry actually championing? *