There have been periodic calls for continuity in economic policies, regarded as critical by successive economic team leaders, to achieve development – a call that in the past decade or two has been couched under the not so innovative title ‘charter of economy’ – drawing from the 2006 ‘charter of democracy’ signed by the then two national party leaders - Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

A look at the budgets for the past two and a half decades – inclusive of Musharraf’s military dictatorship followed by the administration led by all three national parties - reveals that economic policies have been remarkably consistent: a constant thrust towards raising revenue from existing easy to collect taxes rather than through reforming the existing inequitable, unfair and anomalous tax structure, and a steady rise in current expenditure funded by external and domestic borrowings.

The annual budgeted rise in public sector development programme continues to be used to proclaim a pro-poor budget though by the end of the year its outlay is slashed to bring the deficit to sustainable levels, especially during times when the country is on an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme – a condition with little relevance as the country is currently on its twenty-fourth programme, average duration three years, in its 78-year history.

Since the establishment of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) in 2008 there has been a steady rise in its budgeted allocation (in spite of........

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