Economists unhappy with yet another banker as finance adviser

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Mansoor Ahmad
LAHORE: Pakistan peoples Party has followed the footsteps of Gen ® Musharaf by appointing a banker as Pakistan’s finance manager to clean the highly infected balance sheet of the economy.

Shaukat Tareen who, as adviser to Prime Minister on Finance, would act as de facto Finance Minister of the country would be the second economic head of Pakistan who in the past was associated with the CitiBank group.

Though most of the economists have reservations about the economic policies pursued by former finance minister and prime minister Shaukat Aziz but it seems that even then the ruling party has decided to give chance to another banker.

Some experts sympathize with the ruling party that seems to have no one among its ranks to look after the sickly economy.

They said with such dearth of talent Tareen as a technocrat seems to be a better choice than the incumbent Finance Minister Naveed Qamar. They however warned that the new finance minister should not try to run the country as a corporate entity. They said managing economy of a country is a cumbersome job particularly when all the macro-economic indicators are on sharp decline.

They said bankers usually try to clean the balance sheet and are ruthless in this regard.

The banking spread in the country increased at a time when the economy of the country is on decline. Banks in fact are perhaps the only high profit-making entities in the corporate sector. Senior economist Naveed Anwar Khan warned that finances of the country can not be run like a corporate entity. There are vulnerable groups that have to be taken care of. He said the present economic situation demands painful decisions.

He said the balance sheet of the country could be cleaned either by increasing indirect taxes or by bringing the tax evaders into tax net. He said levying indirect taxes would be an easy option and any banker would jump for it. However, he enunciated this is an inhumane option as well.

He said the present regime has been exactly doing the same. This, he said, is evident from the fact that federal taxes have shown growth of over 23 per cent in the first quarter of this fiscal. The economic woes have continued unabated.

He said poorer segment of the society has become poorer while rich are adding more wealth.

Khan said the other option of bringing tax evaders into tax net needs strong political will because many in the ruling party would also be trapped. He said a banker would like to go for an easy option that could clean the balance sheet quickly while a prudent economic manager would be more humane and go for a lengthy path to ensure sustainable growth.

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