Pakistan’s poverty crisis is alarming. Reported World Bank findings indicate that Pakistan accounts for 48% of the people living below the international $3-a-day poverty threshold in the MENAAP region, while poverty increased by 6.4 percentage points between FY2018–19 and FY2024–25.

The financial burden is equally disturbing. Pakistan’s federal budget for FY2025–26 allocated Rs 8.207 trillion for interest payments on public debt—approximately Rs 937 million every hour. Imagine the schools, hospitals, jobs, and social protection programmes that such enormous resources could otherwise support.

Who is paying the price for this economic crisis? Ordinary citizens, struggling with rising food prices, expensive electricity, heavy taxation, unemployment, and declining purchasing power. Meanwhile, lavish federal and provincial expenditure, official privileges, and weak accountability continue to raise fundamental questions about the priorities of those governing the country.

Uraan Pakistan: Vision Without Visible Relief?
The Planning Commission’s Uraan Pakistan programme sets ambitious goals for economic transformation. National development planning is essential, but under prevailing conditions, the government must answer a fundamental question: how will these ambitions translate into relief for people struggling to meet their basic needs?

What good are ambitious economic targets if poverty deepens, debt servicing consumes enormous public resources, and families cannot afford food, healthcare, and education? Uraan Pakistan must demonstrate measurable results, credible financing, transparent implementation, and tangible improvements in living standards. National progress must be measured by the welfare of citizens, not merely by the announcements of policymakers.

Where Are Pakistan’s Accountability Institutions?
Pakistan has numerous accountability and audit institutions, yet a disturbing question remains: who is holding those who control public money accountable?

While ordinary citizens are squeezed by inflation and taxation, lavish government expenditure at federal and provincial levels continues to demand serious scrutiny. Where are the timely interventions, effective expenditure controls, recoveries of misused public money, and visible consequences for proven financial misconduct?

Accountability cannot mean merely opening cases against selected individuals or issuing reports that gather dust. It must include scrutiny of official privileges, unnecessary purchases, expensive protocols, questionable contracts, and wasteful projects. These institutions must demonstrate independence, transparency, and results.

A nation drowning in debt cannot afford accountability institutions that fail to prevent or effectively address avoidable waste. Every rupee wasted is a rupee denied to a schoolchild, a patient, an unemployed young person, or a family living in poverty.

What Have We Done to the Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Gifted Us?
Pakistan was the historic achievement of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, built through immense sacrifice and the hope of a dignified future for its people. What have we done to that precious legacy?

Decades of poor governance, policy failures, financial indiscipline, and inadequate accountability have brought the country to a point where millions struggle for basic necessities while public debt continues to mount.

Pakistan does not lack talent, potential, or human resources. The tragedy is the failure of successive governments to translate that potential into widespread prosperity and security. Public money is a trust, not a privilege of office. Those entrusted with governing must demonstrate restraint and responsibility, especially when citizens are being asked to make painful sacrifices.

Quaid-e-Azam did not struggle to create a Pakistan where ordinary people would bear the burden of national failures while those in power remained insulated from sacrifice.

The Choice Before Pakistan
Pakistan cannot borrow its way out of poverty while ignoring wasteful expenditure, unequal economic burdens, and governance failures. It needs fair taxation, productive investment, strict financial discipline, transparent public spending, and accountability without discrimination.

The World Bank’s poverty findings must not become another report forgotten after a few days of headlines. They should compel a fundamental reassessment of national priorities. Economic transformation must begin with expenditure reform, effective oversight, and policies that protect vulnerable citizens.

The question confronting every Pakistani is painfully simple: What kind of country are we leaving to the next generation?

Pakistan cannot afford austerity for the poor and luxury for the powerful. It cannot promise economic transformation while tolerating waste and ineffective accountability. The time has come for honest leadership, responsible governance, and justice for the people. Until the welfare of citizens takes precedence over the privileges of those in power, poverty will remain a national disgrace and the promise of our founding an unfulfilled dream.

Dr Alamdar Hussain Malik
Advisor Academic, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Swat.
Former,Financial advisor ,Finance Division
Government of Pakistan