As the PML-N completed three years of its third term of government last week, it is trying to put across a narrative that the Pakistan of today is much better than that of 2013, the year when it took over.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar is at the forefront of this campaign. He never misses a chance to assert that those talking about Pakistan being at the verge of international default in 2013 had been proven wrong and the economy has reached a stage in three years where it can now aim for higher growth rates to reach 7pc by 2018.

The government has stabilised the national economy as promised before the 2013 elections, and the goal is to achieve higher economic growth, he said in a recent remark.

“The nation should rest assured we have moved out of the legacy … have achieved stability and are set to consolidate gains with growth without comprising on fiscal discipline”.

He echoed similar observations while presenting the fourth consecutive budget of the government, when he said “in every budget we have done better than the previous one; all economic indicators testify to this claim”.

Therefore, the growth rate target for fiscal year 2018-19 under the medium — term macroeconomic plan has been kept unchanged at 7pc, notwithstanding a struggling 4.7pc growth against the 5.5pc target for the current year.

Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi minces no words in conceding that gas availability in the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) system has dropped 32pc to 1150mmcfd (million cubic feet per day) in five years, and that of SGSGCL increased by a miserly 4pc to 1250mmcfd; but claims credit for the fastest development of a terminal to inject 400mmcfd of imported Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as a partial compensation.

Critics say Pakistan could have been much better had the overall governance improved and sectoral reforms taken to the logical conclusion

Water and Power Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif feels satisfied that the 12-14 hours of average loadshedding for all consumer categories, prevailing in 2013, has been completely wiped out by now for the industry except for one shift gap in Ramazan, and reduced for urban and rural consumers to 5-8 hours on average with a predictable schedule.

He is also happy that recoveries in the power sector have increased from the 88-90pc range between 2005-2013, to 93.4pc at the end of fiscal year 2016; securing a saving of about Rs51bn that would otherwise have increased circular debt.

He also claims that transmission and distribution losses were down to 18pc now from 19.4pc in 2007, creating another cushion of Rs10bn per annum.

While the unfortunate collapse in growth rate of agriculture pulled down the country’s growth prospects in the outgoing year, a resultant squeeze in the size of the GDP helped put fiscal indicators on the positive side.

For example, the total revenue targeted at 15.1pc of GDP for this year turned out to be 15.9pc of GDP, as the projected GDP size of Rs30.67trn fell down to Rs29.60trn. Likewise, the tax revenue estimate has been revised to 12.6pc of GDP instead of the targeted 12pc.

The FBR tax target was set at 10.1pc of GDP, but touched 10.5pc. Non-tax revenue also inched up to 3.3pc of GDP against the targeted 3pc.

No wonder then, the next year is to jack up total revenue by 0.1pc to 16pc of GDP, tax revenue and FBR revenue to go up by 0.3pc to 12.9pc and 10.8pc of GDP respectively.

On the flip side, the total public debt-to-GDP ratio targeted at 62pc for the outgoing year has increased to 64.8pc despite the rise in the size of the GDP to Rs33.51trn.

With the GDP size estimated to touch Rs37.80trn in 2017-18, the total revenue is to slip to 15.9pc of GDP, FBR revenue to go up to 13.4pc, and total debt to fall to 57.8pc of GDP.

To support growth, Mr Shahid K Abbasi says he would deliver 2000 mmcfd of LNG into the gas system by mid-2018 that would “completely wipe out load shedding in the country”, with the installation of 4000mw of LNG based plants already coming to operation by mid-2017 — a critical deadline when the PML-N would be in a populist mode to churn out the final budget of its tenure.

He said he has set a target for himself to create an LNG based environment which would have ‘surplus gas in the system’ by 2018.

For this project Rs970bn investment is already in the pipeline — mostly outside the Public Sector Development Programme — including Rs850bn for three major north-south and Gawadar-south gas pipelines, and Rs120bn for four additional LNG terminals.

With current gas supplies of about 4BCFD, the demand is currently estimated beyond 8BCFD.

On the other hand, Khawaja Asif avoids giving a definite deadline but expects absolute zero load shedding in the country by January 2018.

With an estimated investment of $58.2bn in the pipeline to materialise between 2019-22, total generation would increase to 36,084mw, including 11,208mw in the public sector.

Critics say Pakistan could have been much better off had the overall governance improved and sectoral reforms taken to the logical conclusion, but there is no doubt Pakistan has a long way yet to go.

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, June 13th, 2016