WHETHER discussing the pitfalls of the 1990s’ foreign currency deposit scheme or the government’s growing recourse to printing money to pay its bills in present times, few have been more colourful in their expression and more forthright in their opinions than the late Meekal Ahmed.

Feisty and opinionated, spontaneous and spirited, he was generous with his friendship and made for a formidable and uninhibited adversary. Conversation with him was so much fun, that the first time we ever met (unfortunately also the last; our promises to meet again in the warmth of home were left unfulfilled), we ended up sitting for hours over the remains of a sumptuous lunch and talked and laughed and shared views and exchanged notes for hours.

It was one of those moments where you meet someone for the first time and hit it off so well that you come out feeling like old friends.

I’m one of those people with whom Meekal Ahmed maintained a vigorous correspondence for many years, often including me in little email spats he would spark with other members of his tribe of Pakistani economists. He was a regular reader of my writings and an equally regular commenter, and over the years we exchanged so many views and emails that a small archive has built up in my inbox.

Upon hearing of his sudden and untimely passing, I opened up this correspondence and went back and reread some of our best moments. Many of them I cannot share, because he was naming names and his strongly held views came couched in unparliamentary language. But that’s what made it all so much fun.

A couple of themes dominated his writings. He ended his career with the IMF at about the same time as Pakistan began monetising its debt and payment obligations in massive quantities. From 2006 onwards, Pakistan has resorted to printing of money to pay its bills to a degree that has no parallel in our history.

The last comparable period of rapid debt build-up was in the Junejo years and debt financing was arranged primarily through non-bank sources back then, using the National Savings Scheme, ad hoc T-bill auctions (which were inflationary, no doubt), as well as other creative elements. But outright State Bank financing was avoided then too.

Not so in our time. Soon it’ll be a decade that Pakistan has been inflating away its fiscal dysfunctions, borrowing and printing with reckless abandon. Bringing this fiscal train wreck under control is critical to stabilising the country, and one of Meekal’s pet peeves throughout this era has been people who argue that Pakistan ought to learn from advanced economies and try to implement a fiscal stimulus.

When one colleague wrote an article saying Pakistan should eschew the path of ‘austerity’, Meekal was not amused. This was his response:

“Pakistan practises austerity? How is one supposed to read the rest of the article when it is anchored on such a false/bogus premise? What is ‘austere’ about a fiscal deficit of 7.5pc of GDP over the past five years, financed by borrowing? And why do we talk about the travails of Europe and the US? What do we have in common with them? No one has ever said that the solution to Pakistan's problems lies in raising revenue only. Not even the IMF. This is another bogus premise. The author has had a good long innings, having reached great heights that I am sure he did not even dream of. He should now relax. I strongly suggest he take up gardening. …”

This was vintage Meekal Ahmed: showstopping bluntness and a mind as sharp as his wit.

The other big theme in his writings has been Pakistan’s constant search for external powers who will underwrite our consumption-led growth process. Here’s how he put it in 2008, when discussing why the IMF did not flag the problems in the Musharraf era bubble:

“Pakistan’s relationship with IMF-sponsored reforms has been a recurring pattern of hope, euphoria, despair and crisis which needs to be told because it is the antithesis of what a country should do if it wants any reform programme to succeed.”

He described the cycle that gets under way when an IMF programme is signed: confidence returns, reserves build up, capital flight stops and then reverses. As the situation begins to improve, false comfort kicks in.

“Policymakers relax as the sense of caution gives way to self-congratulation and a willingness to take risks. There is a needless, triumphant declaration to the world about how Pakistan has thrown off the yoke of the IMF and regained its ‘economic sovereignty’. To me, these words signal the beginning of the end.”

Pakistan’s salvation lies in being able to break out of this endless cycle of boom and bust, driven by a constant thirst for external assistance. But for that to happen, the ruling elites will need to want to break the cycle of dependence, rather than search only for the palliative that is aid.

I didn’t always agree with Meekal’s ideas about how best to achieve this, but he was always a good person to go to for feedback and discussion. It’s hard to bid farewell to such an endearing spirit and a mind that remained sharp till the very end, and I must say I will miss him like I would an old friend.

The writer is a business journalist and 2013-2014 Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre, Washington D.C.

khurram.husain@gmail.com

Twitter: @khurramhusain