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problem is not its level of debt, Pakistan’s problem is it doesn’t invest its money in a
sensible way which generates money.
And so, we are in for tough times, but I think sometimes it’s important to just
recognise that and say yaar we are going to go through some difficult times. Let’s do
it right now. Let’s make sure that they don’t get any worse. Acknowledge that we will
have to tighten our belts. It’s not that that’s what the IMF is saying. I think we should
go a step further. We should think and say what the tough measures are. I guarantee
you, if we adopt tough measures, if we fix our balance of payments, people like the
IMF will stop bothering you. The only reason they do it is because they don’t see you
taking the necessary steps.
Why aren’t younger generations coming up and making these policies?
So, my only hope is that sometimes tough situations, maybe I’m trying to be overly
optimistic over here, sometimes tough situations make people move. They act like a
wakeup call. Allah Willing.
On a potential wish list for improving Pakistan’s economic outlook:
I would just do three things. And actually, the rest would follow. I would massively
invest in education, and I don’t mean only english, urdu, maths, but diversified
education. When I say invest in education, I mean mass scale. Everyone should get
the opportunity to recognise their talent and to use their talent. And that is not an
easy thing to attain. A lot of people spend their entire lives not knowing their calling:
am I meant to be a photographer, a gardener, an electrician, an economist, a
politician? How do you find that out? And this is not a problem specific to Pakistan,
the world over people are facing this problem. Your education system needs to be
flexible enough to allow people to discover their innate abilities. We should celebrate
people when they take their talent and they deploy their talent. That is what the
education system needs: identify talent, celebrate talent, nurture and grow talent.
That’s one. It’s a long term thing, but in a few years you can really start bringing
changes, which you can see.
The second thing you need to do is make sure your financial systems are able to
give financing to talent. Whether it is in the form of a loan, investment, equity,
whatever the structure. When you identify a talented person, and you help them,
then you need to provide them with resources as well. So the second thing I would
do is, have financial systems whose mandate is to make money, by investing in
talent. They may be a little wary of risk. You have to reassure them, encourage them
to start. Say Bismillah. And then there’s one third thing I would do, which is part of
investing in talent. You spoke about resilience. You’re right, there is a lot of
resilience. But you also see stories of families trajectories getting totally derailed. If a
family member dies unexpectedly or suffers an injury, if the family falls victim to an