A Mirror We Can No Longer Look Away From

There are moments when a country is handed a mirror so clear and so unavoidable that turning away becomes part of the problem. The IMF’s Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment (GCDA) is precisely such a mirror for Pakistan— exposing once again the persistent, structural failures that have hollowed out our institutions and distorted our politics. Yet, the more striking truth is that many of the concerns raised in the GCDA are ones Pakistanis themselves have voiced for decades. Long before international institutions began issuing diagnostics, ordinary citizens, civil society, and independent analysts understood that corruption here is not a distant threat but an entrenched operating system.

This latest GCDA frames corruption as a series of “risks” that could undermine governance. But for anyone observing Pakistan’s institutional landscape with even moderate clarity, these are not risks— they are realities. Whether in procurement leakages, politicized regulatory bodies, or the opacity surrounding state-owned enterprises, the patterns are deeply rooted. Describing them as vulnerabilities to be monitored almost underplays the urgency. What we are confronting is not a potential hazard; it is the very environment in which the state functions. And framing these issues as already embedded rather than latent allows a more honest starting point for reform.

The mirror has been handed to us once again. The question is not whether the IMF sees our weaknesses clearly; it is whether we are finally willing to look squarely at our own reflection—and act

The IMF’s document may be new in format, but not in substance. For years, Article IV consultations, staff reports, and governance reviews have identified nearly identical deficiencies. The repetition of these diagnoses should not merely reflect persistence of problems— it should raise deeper questions about why implementation consistently fails. Pakistan has developed a political culture where reform is proclaimed but rarely enacted, where compliance is delayed, and where institutional strengthening is discussed but seldom practised. Power struggles, turf battles, and selective enforcement often eclipse genuine governance improvement. This is an internal critique we must own, irrespective of IMF commentary.

And this is where my vantage diverges slightly from the IMF’s tone. While the Fund correctly identifies weak oversight, low transparency, and politicized institutions, it tends to situate solutions in technical upgrades, capacity building, and procedural reforms. But Pakistan’s governance crisis is not primarily technical. It is structural and political. It is about incentives— specifically, the incentives for those in power to resist change. Without rebalancing incentives toward institutional compliance and away from political convenience, no reform package, however well drafted, will take root. This is not a cynicism; it is an observable truth across multiple cycles of reform fatigue.

For example, most anti-corruption bodies are periodically energized only to be later undercut or used for partisan purposes. The GCDA rightly calls out these vulnerabilities, but the deeper challenge is ensuring reforms do not become instruments of political vendetta. Recommendations on strengthening audit offices, enhancing autonomy of regulatory authorities, improving procurement data, and enforcing asset declarations are meaningful only when applied impartially. Pakistan has repeatedly seen governance rhetoric convert into selective accountability— an outcome that defeats the very purpose of reforms. This is why legal safeguards, transparent procedures, and independent oversight mechanisms must accompany any institutional strengthening.

At the same time, the GCDA’s emphasis on fiscal governance— particularly procurement transparency, SOE reforms, and AML enforcement— is not new. From energy sector leakages to non-competitive contracting, many of these problems are well known. What is needed now is not another reiteration, but a shift from descriptive analysis to enforceable progress. Yet enforcing progress does not have to be framed in aggressive, externally imposed terms. Without inviting domestic backlash or appearing to advocate external pressure, one can reasonably argue that reforms gain credibility when linked with visible, measurable demonstrations of improvement.

Instead of explicitly tying financial tranches to strict conditions, Pakistan can publicly commit to transparent benchmarks— such as publishing procurement data in machine-readable form, disclosing SOE board appointments with merit-based criteria, or issuing periodic summaries of high-value corruption cases. Such actions strengthen sovereignty rather than undermine it because they build domestic trust and reduce the discretionary space in which corruption thrives.

A subtler but equally important point that the IMF only partially captures is that many governance distortions in Pakistan are engineered through opacity— deliberate or structural. Whether in beneficial ownership records, procurement exceptions, regulatory waivers, or discretionary fiscal decisions, ambiguity is often a tool of influence. Countering that demands not only better systems but also a cultural shift toward openness. Data that is proactively published, decisions that are transparently justified, and audits that are accessible to the public create a governance ecosystem where misuse of power becomes harder to hide. These are reforms that serve the national interest regardless of the IMF’s involvement.

The ultimate challenge, however, lies not in the accuracy of the GCDA but in Pakistan’s political will to internalize its message. The GCDA has not told us anything fundamentally new— it has merely documented with external precision what citizens already experience daily. Whether it is tax inequity, regulatory capture, or politicized policing, the country’s governance failures are visible to all. But external diagnostics do offer one crucial advantage: they expose inconsistencies between public commitments and actual performance. When an international assessment highlights the same weaknesses Pakistan promised to fix years ago, the accountability narrative becomes unavoidable.

If Pakistan continues to treat governance reform as a discretionary exercise— pursued when politically convenient and paused when politically risky— then not even the most sophisticated assessments will shift outcomes. But if we embrace the GCDA not as an external instruction manual but as a confirmation of our own long-standing critique, it can serve as a pivot point. Corruption must be acknowledged as already embedded, not looming. Reform must be pursued as a national necessity, not an IMF requirement. And institutional strengthening must occur to serve citizens, not partisan agendas.

The mirror has been handed to us once again. The question is not whether the IMF sees our weaknesses clearly; it is whether we are finally willing to look squarely at our own reflection—and act.