File photo of Pakistan Senate
Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) Senator Irfan Siddiqui on Tuesday proposed constituting a parliamentary committee to probe the causes for the deterioration of the country’s economy over the past decade.
Speaking on a point of order in the Upper House, he lamented that political parties were more eager to play the “blame game” than examine—“beyond political divisions”—the reasons for the country’s economic collapse. Pointing to a lack of accountability, he noted that former dictator Gen. (retd.) Pervez Musharraf had suspended the Constitution twice but hadn’t suffered even a single day of jail for his crimes. “We [politicians] keep telling stories of each other’s corruption but nobody asks how many millions of dollars Musharraf deposited in his accounts,” he said, adding that he believed the current economic crisis started with the ouster of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif in 2017.
Referring to economic stats of the PMLN’s last tenure, he claimed the GDP had been prospering, inflation was low and the rupee had been stable. “But then Nawaz Sharif was removed, and through the 2018 elections, a system was imposed which led to disaster,” he said, referring to the PTI-led government that had come into power with the support of the establishment and pursued a “hybrid regime” of governance that former Army chief Gen. (retd.) Qamar Javed Bajwa has also confirmed.
There have been growing concerns across Pakistan over the country’s economy, as the ruling coalition continues to dither on moving forward with an International Monetary Fund (IMF) program that experts say is essential to avoid default. The country’s foreign exchange reserves are now less than $4.5 billion, insufficient to even cover a month of imports, while several pledges of financial support from “friendly nations” have yet to materialize.
The Pakistani rupee is also in persistent decline, which has seen the country’s stock market also sharply declining as investors panic over concerns that the economy is headed toward default with little apparent action by the government to avoid it. Some experts have also started to allege that the lack of dollars could provoke a fuel shortage in the coming weeks, triggering even further inflation.
Balochistan’s concerns
Issues concerning Pakistan’s least populous—and most underdeveloped—province also came up for discussion in the Senate. Senator Kamran Murtaza of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazl) raised objections over remarks attributed to Commander Southern Command Lt. Gen. Asif Ghafoor in which he allegedly claimed anyone who protested in Gwadar would be imprisoned.
Speaking on a point of public concern, the senator said protesting was the right of all citizens in a democracy and the demands of locals in Gwadar were neither unconstitutional nor illegal. “Is Gwadar some occupied territory?” he asked, adding that no military officer had the right to threaten the public in this manner. “We reject such behavior and threats,” he said.
Responding to Murtaza’s remarks, Balochistan Awami Party Senator Danesh Kumar said the house should not discuss unverified social media reports and questioned why the Pakistan Army was being dragged into such matters unnecessarily while it claimed to be apolitical. To this, the JUIF senator said that the military official’s statement had been widely reported and if it was inaccurate, Lt. Gen. Ghafoor should have contradicted it.
Prior to the Senate session being prorogued, independent Senator Naseema Ehsan from Balochistan spoke on a point of public importance, alleging the Navy was involved in land grabbing in the province. “We used to think that if the Navy or any other institution came to Balochistan, we would be safe and the province would progress,” she said, lamenting that instead the Navy had started “occupying the lands of the poor.”