Fazeel Asif
After 25 IMF programmes, Pakistan is still poor. Still import-dependent. Still can’t export anything meaningful. Still one bad quarter away from default.
And everyone acts surprised. Everyone has theories. The IMF is predatory. We’re victims of neocolonialism. The global system is rigged against us.
No.
This is not economic failure. This is elite engineering, and I’m going to say it plainly: the system works exactly as intended — just not for majority of Pakistanis.
A country that needs the IMF once might be unlucky. A country that needs it 25 times is telling on itself.
THE LIE EVERYONE KEEPS REPEATING
Ministers love saying this: “IMF programmes helped Pakistan stabilize and grow.”
Actually they didn’t.What they did was help Pakistan avoid sovereign default while keeping the exact same people in power who caused the crisis in the first place. That’s not reform, that’s life support for the elite.
Growth was never the goal. Survival of the system was.
Think about it — if these programmes actually worked, why do we keep going back? Why are the same government officials still designing policy? Why are the same business groups still untaxed? Why is the same landed gentry still sitting on agricultural wealth they’ve never declared?
Because the programmes were never designed to challenge them.
WHAT THE IMF MONEY ACTUALLY PAID FOR
Every time we go to the IMF, the money gets used for the same things:
Import bills (mostly oil)
Paying back previous loans
Keeping foreign exchange reserves from hitting zero
Creating enough “stability” that we can borrow again next year
You know what it was never used for? Building anything. Productivity. Industrial capacity. Export competitiveness.
Why? Because doing that would require Pakistan to confront the people who actually run this country — the landowners who don’t pay tax, the industrialists hiding behind tariff walls, the state enterprises bleeding billions.
And no government has ever had the spine to do that.
THE GROWTH NUMBERS ARE A LIE
Here’s the math they don’t want you to do:
Over the last 40 years, Pakistan’s GDP grew at maybe 3-4% annually. Sounds okay, right?
Except our population grew at 2-2.5% over the same period.
Net per capita progress? Essentially zero.
We didn’t grow. We just got more crowded.
And when you have a young, growing population and only 3% growth, you’re not creating opportunity — you’re creating a pressure cooker. Unemployment. Radicalization. And eventually, everyone who can afford a plane ticket leaves.
Which is exactly what happened.
THE EXPORT DISASTER (THIS ONE ACTUALLY MAKES ME FRUSTRATED ) how badly Pakistan has failed? Look at exports.
Our exports have been stuck around $30-35 billion for more than a decade. As a percentage of GDP, that’s roughly 10%.
You know what Vietnam’s export-to-GDP ratio is? 95%. Bangladesh, a country we used to look down on? Around 20%. Thailand’s at 60%. I’m not going to list every country that passed us but you get the point.
After 25 IMF programmes, Pakistan still can’t earn enough dollars to pay for its own imports.
That’s not a capacity problem. That’s a choice. A policy crime, if you want to be dramatic about it — and I do, because it is.
WHO’S BLOCKING GROWTH?
Let me tell you who’s actually blocking this.
The Untaxed Parasite Class
Large landowners. Real estate hoarders. Wholesale and retail cartels. Doctors and lawyers making obscene money while declaring poverty to the FBR.
They consume everything the state provides — roads, security, subsidies, infrastructure — and contribute almost nothing back.
The IMF has never stopped Pakistan from taxing these people. Pakistani governments have. Why? Because the people writing tax policy ARE these people. Or they’re related to them. Or they need their political support.
It’s the same story every time.
The Protected Cartels
Sugar. Cement. Cars. Fertilizer. Energy distribution.
These aren’t industries. They’re monopolies with lobbyists.
They demand protection from imports, guaranteed profits, subsidized inputs — and in return, they deliver expensive garbage that can’t compete internationally. They’ve killed competition, destroyed any chance of building exports, and inflated prices for everyone else.
This isn’t industrial policy. This is extortion with government paperwork.
And we all just… accept it? Like this is normal?
State-Owned Graveyards
DISCOs. Pakistan Railways. Steel Mills. PIA finally got privatized, thank God, but how many billions did we burn first?
These entities don’t exist to provide services. They exist to provide jobs — for political loyalists, for family members, for anyone who needs a favor. And we all pay for it.
Every single IMF programme demanded reforms. Every single Pakistani government nodded, formed a committee, missed deadlines, and moved on.
Privatization isn’t some neoliberal fantasy. It’s basic fiscal sanity. Stop bleeding money on patronage machines.
The Ministries That Pretend to Reform
Finance. Commerce. Industries.
They all talk a good game. They know the language. “Structural reforms.” “Fiscal consolidation.” “Export-led growth.”
And then nothing happens.
In Pakistan, failure has no consequences. You can tank the economy and get posted to another ministry. You can oversee collapse and still get a consultancy afterwards. No one gets fired or face any punishment.
That’s how you get permanent stagnation.
GUESS WHO PAID FOR “AUSTERITY”?
Here’s the thing about IMF programmes in Pakistan — they never touch the powerful.
The adjustment always falls on:
Salaried employees (through taxes and inflation)
Small and medium businesses (through insane interest rates)
Exporters (through an overvalued rupee and no credit)
The poor (through subsidy cuts and utility price hikes)
We imposed austerity on the productive parts of the economy while protecting the parasitic ones.
And then everyone wonders why growth collapsed after every programme. Why poverty got worse. Why the educated youth are desperate to leave.
It’s not a mystery.
DEBT IS A TRAP WHEN YOU DON’T GROW
Pakistan’s debt exploded after almost every IMF programme, and it’s not complicated why.
You can’t repay debt without growth. And you can’t grow while protecting inefficiency, monopolies, and tax evasion.
So the IMF programme becomes a bridge loan to the next crisis. And the next one. And the one after that.
We’re not stabilizing. We’re buying time for the same system to survive.
WHAT WE LOST (THIS PART HURTS)
While Pakistan was recycling the same IMF script every few years, look what happened elsewhere:
Vietnam built export factories and became a manufacturing hub. Bangladesh built a garment industry and left us behind. India developed capital markets and tech ecosystems. Indonesia diversified its manufacturing base.
Pakistan? We got really, really good at crisis management.
Not development. Crisis management.
And at what cost? Millions of jobs that were never created. Entire industries that never existed. A generation of doctors, engineers, and entrepreneurs who got on planes and never came back.
We didn’t just lose decades. We lost futures.
I don’t know how else to say it.
THE REAL PROBLEM (AND STOP BLAMING THE IMF)
Pakistan does not have an IMF problem.
Pakistan has a tax justice problem — the elite don’t pay.
Pakistan has a rent-seeking problem and monopolies everywhere.
Pakistan has a governance problem — no one confronts power.
Pakistan has a honesty problem — everyone lies about everything.
The IMF isn’t the villain here. The IMF is the emergency room doctor we keep showing up to after we’ve poisoned ourselves.
The disease is domestic. And it’s deliberate.
HOW WE ESCAPE (IF WE’RE SERIOUS)
There are no technocratic fixes left. Only political choices that require actual courage:
Tax the powerful, not just the salaried. Land. Real estate. Retail. Wholesale. End the fiction that only people with pay slips contribute to the state.
End protection without performance. If you can’t export, you don’t get a tariff wall. Simple.
Privatize or shut down the loss-makers. DISCOs. Railways. Steel Mills. Stop the bleeding. Fire the political boards. ENOUGH.
Tie every subsidy to a measurable outcome. Export subsidies only if you actually export. Energy subsidies only if you industrialize. No more free lunches for anyone.
Make failure costly. Fire incompetent bureaucrats. Prosecute corrupt officials. Name the ministers who failed. Public accountability, not just musical chairs between ministries.
Back exporters and entrepreneurs, not rent-seekers. Give them credit, land, infrastructure. Stop designing policy for cartels and their pet lobbyists.
But here’s the thing — none of this will happen. Because the people who would have to make these choices are the same people who benefit from the current system.
They’re not going to reform themselves. Why would they?
FINAL THOUGHTS
The IMF didn’t make Pakistan poor.
The IMF helped Pakistan avoid collapse — repeatedly.
Pakistan’s elite made sure we never grew after each rescue.
These programmes aren’t rescue missions. They’re symptoms. Symptoms of a state that’s been captured, a system that’s designed to extract, and a ruling class that would rather see the country fail than give up an ounce of privilege.
And here’s the punchline: the 26th IMF programme is already being negotiated.
Same script. Same actors. Same outcome.
Because the system isn’t broken.
It’s working exactly as designed — for them.
