Islamabad has run out of options to boost a sagging economic outlook and its time to take difficult decisions
There are several ways to diagnose what ails Pakistan’s economy. But one place to start is at the Office of the Protectorate of Emigrants for the answer. That’s where people get their passports stamped before travelling abroad for work.
The protectorate office in Karachi is tucked behind commercial high-rises off its busy Shahrah-e-Faisal road. Usually, it takes some asking around to find the premises, as I found out on a visit last year. At the protectorate, the real problem is going through the hassle of arranging a dozen documents including a medical certificate from a designated doctor, filling out complicated forms and paying registration fees at two different bank branches. , an improvised solution or ‘hack’, to monetise the bureaucratic labyrinth and fuel what’s known as the informal economy, where money changes hands away from the official tax net.
“It’s really all about the ease of doing business. A lot of our time is wasted in dealing with bureaucratic issues,” says Ikram Elahi, CEO of a Lahore-based food company. “For instance, food department officials will take samples from raw milk and complain about the bacterial count. We tell them the sample is bound to have bacteria because it’s not even pasteurised,” says Elahi.
Country-wide sales of diesel fuel are widely considered a barometer of economic activity as it is used to run tractors in farms and factories in the cities, he says. Pakistan’s current economic problems can also be traced to decisions made by the previous government to artificially inflate the value of the country’s currency, the rupee.
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