Pakistan's persistent economic failures mirror political and governance dysfunction. It has become a fact deepened by our national fallacy of doing the same things again and again and expecting different outcomes. Without changing this self-indulgent, insulated mindset, we will keep dramatising and fictionalising our poor performance as triumphs.

While researching this subject, I came across a revealing exchange in national newspapers last October: Imtiaz Gul's critique, "Planning Commission or Graveyard of Fantasies," and its rebuttal from Minister Ahsan Iqbal, "Vision vs. Fantasy: A Reality Check". Gul slammed the Planning Commission under Iqbal's leadership for failing to deliver. He added that Uraan Pakistan 2035 is nothing but the same failed template and recycled Vision 2025.

Whereas Iqbal argued that Gul's critique is rhetoric lacking substance. He also claimed Gul cherry-picked successes while blaming stop-go cycles for the deeper rot. Apparently, something out of the political hedging playbook: Deny–Deflect–Defuse (3Ds).

Pakistan's development history is a "Same Script Economy Failure," and dead models are laid to rest in the Planning Commission's necropolis. The repeated cycles of announcements, abandonment, and reinvention of visions and plans synchronise with political shifts since the 1960s.

The first incarnation of the economy began with Ayub's USAID-driven military enterprise and crony capitalism that enriched 22 families. This exacerbated inequality and hastened the 1971.

The second incarnation saw Bhutto's reactive tackling of socialism and the birth of inefficient state-owned enterprises. This resulted in corresponding losses: Rs. 832B in FY25 alone, accumulated losses at Rs. 6.53T, equity erosion at Rs. 3T, and a debt portfolio has risen to Rs. 9.57T.

The third incarnation came under Zia's Islamisation, which added distortion to an already fragile economy. It included partial reversal of Bhutto's policies, deepened military influence, and........

© The Friday Times