VER the past few years, the people of Pakistan have paid immensely for their state`s failure to expend national resources in sensible, sustainable ways. The pressure that foreign lenders have been exerting on Pakistan to force it to live within its means is one of the consequences of the country`s history of bad policies. Stricter oversight from the IMF has worked in some ways, but it has also resulted in several anti-people outcomes. Since our federal policymakers have a limited appetite for broadening the tax base, they have taken to repeatedly appropriating funds earmarked for the people`s development and using them to meet the country`s financial needs. Seen from another perspective, re-appropriation of development spending has been used as a tactic by the ruling elite to force ordinary people to shoulder as much as possible of the burden of years of their own bad policies.

Considering how hard ordinary Pakistanis have been hit by higher taxation and runaway inflation, basic decency would demand that the government show at least some regret for repeatedly taking from their development funds. Instead, Islamabad has little remorse for its misdeeds.

Though tax collection for the ongoing fiscal year is now almost half a trillion rupees behind target, the size of politically managed development schemes is being doubled to Rs50bn for fiscal 2024-25, according to reports. While it will be argued that these funds will be spent on projects that ultimately benefit the public, there are three key issues that bear highlighting. Firstly, funds allocated to political schemes usually end up with lawmakers from ruling parties. This can mean that areas where the opposition is more popular may be deprived of the benefits of such schemes.

Secondly, because these funds are spent at lawmakers` discretion, there is a high chance of corruption and cronyism in the award of project contracts. Lastly, the argument for lawmaker-led schemes is that they know their areas better and understand local needs; however, the question remains whether, in practice, their priorities actually align with local development needs. What cannot be denied is that these schemes are meant to maximise political benefits for the ruling elite. Given the dire state of our finances, no amount of public funds should be used so arbitrarily, especially not for political purposes. The present mess is a result of such skewed priorities.