Pakistan’s fragile economy faces yet another blow as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reportedly attached 11 stringent conditions to its new $7-billion bailout package conditions that strike at the core of the country’s chronic governance failures, decades-old mismanagement, and structural corruption. The IMF’s latest demands go beyond routine fiscal adjustments. They target some of Pakistan’s most politically sensitive sectors: taxation, sugar mills, energy tariffs, and power sector reforms. The conditions highlight what critics have long argued Pakistan’s ruling elites have allowed systemic rot to fester while ordinary citizens are forced to pay the price.

Tax System Under Fire

One of the IMF’s central conditions focuses on widening Pakistan’s notoriously narrow tax base. For years, successive governments have protected elite groups big landlords, traders, real estate barons, and politically connected industrial families while squeezing salaried citizens. Now, the IMF wants sweeping steps to eliminate exemptions, increase documentation, and enforce strict compliance. Analysts argue that if Pakistan had repaired its tax machinery earlier, harsh bailout diktats would not be necessary today.

Sugar Sector Corruption Targeted

The sugar industry dominated by politically influential families has become a symbol of Pakistan’s corrupt economic structure. The IMF has reportedly demanded transparency in sugar pricing, export regulations, and subsidy removal. For decades, sugar barons manipulated supplies, inflated prices, and extracted billions in subsidies. Yet no government mustered the political courage to confront them. The IMF’s intervention now exposes Pakistan’s inability to regulate even basic commodities.

Power Sector: An Unending Disaster

Perhaps the toughest conditions relate to Pakistan’s collapsing power sector long plagued by theft, losses, overbilling, and infamously mismanaged contracts with private power producers. The IMF wants tariff hikes, recovery of unpaid bills, restructuring of loss-making distribution companies, and accountability for circular debt that has soared to historic levels. Pakistan’s power crisis is a direct result of years of political appeasement, corruption, and lack of technical expertise. Instead of providing affordable electricity, successive regimes turned the sector into a black hole devouring public funds.

Ordinary Pakistanis to Bear the Burden

While the IMF conditions target elite-created problems, the burden will once again fall on ordinary Pakistanis. More taxes, costlier electricity, higher fuel prices, and rising inflation are expected. For millions already struggling with unemployment and record poverty levels, this bailout offers no immediate relief.

A Country Paying the Price of Its Own Choices

Pakistan’s leadership squandered decades of opportunities, allowed vested interests to overpower national priorities, and repeatedly ignored genuine reforms.Now, international lenders are dictating the rules because Pakistan failed to govern itself responsibly. Until Islamabad confronts entrenched corruption, elite privileges, and structural inefficiencies, bailouts will keep coming and so will the conditions that erode economic sovereignty. 

This image is taken from Business Today.