“Tomatoes are selling at Rs17/Kg”, these were the words of de facto Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh while speaking to a swarm of reporters inquiring about a massive hike in vegetable prices,in particular tomatoes that were costing close to Rs400 a kilo. Hafeez was off, way off.
Governor SBP Reza Baqir, an IMF export, has made some contradictory and confusing statements as well during the year. For example “the economy has stabilized but now it is time to translate that into on-ground change to ease the suffering of the common man” to be followed soon after by “inflation will persist and till then we have to keep the interest rates where they are”.
Any way you slice it; record high inflation in 2019 will continue to remain the bane of PTI’s remainder in power and the technicalities behind it do not matter to those who used to buy vegetables and other food items much cheaper. The positives are there of course, a record reduction in the current account deficit and a better foreign exchange reserves number on the back of foreign loans that understandably were the figures quoted most by the government in its generic updates on the economy. The sad reality is that the persistence in inflation is also the IMF’s fault to which we are heavily indebted, allowing them to dictate hikes in gas and fuel prices, while those in charge of controlling prices are not really in control of anything.
