Stories by Sakib Sherani
Predatory taxation of the formal sector is a fundamental factor in rising informality.
Updated 09 May, 2026 08:30am
Ordinary Pakistanis are being made to pay for the state’s failure to tax its elite constituents.
Updated 18 Apr, 2026 09:34am
By endorsing sham austerity, IMF has failed its duty-of-care responsibility to Pakistanis.
Updated 05 Mar, 2026 09:24am
The country’s policy elite has discovered the Holy Grail. Too bad they are holding the wrong end.
Updated 14 Feb, 2026 09:32am
Pakistanis have been crushed by fiscal austerity while the ruling elite has never had it better.
Updated 03 Jan, 2026 08:59am
The real issue is not how the resources are distributed, but how they are raised and where they are spent.
Updated 06 Dec, 2025 08:56am
Pakistan’s current organising principle as a polity is incompatible with development.
Published 16 Aug, 2025 07:13am
Beyond the official hype, the economic reality of ordinary Pakistanis is dire.
Updated 12 Jun, 2025 09:30am
South Asia needs peace, not another doctrine that further lowers the threshold of all-out war.
Updated 24 May, 2025 09:44am
The US has championed free trade and benefited immensely, but has practised it selectively.
Updated 17 Apr, 2025 09:11am
Instead of ‘hard state’ turning even harder, citizens deserve a state that goes soft on them in delivering democratic and development aspirations.
Updated 03 Apr, 2025 09:00am
Without fundamental rethink and reset, Pakistan’s catastrophic tax regime will drive the country's already shrinking formal sector towards extinction.
Published 20 Mar, 2025 07:51am
Pakistan is being cast into an Egyptian mould. Indonesia offers a better model.
Updated 12 Oct, 2024 09:38am
An unfit programme design and odious lending practices will cast a long shadow on Pakistan.
Published 03 Oct, 2024 08:57am
It is unclear if policymakers truly grasp the nature and scale of the fiscal challenge.
Published 22 Jun, 2024 07:16am
Revisiting the NFC award should be a collaborative exercise with the provinces fully on board.
Updated 04 May, 2024 09:00am
Expecting improvement under an elite under whose watch Pakistan has been brought to this sorry pass is the triumph of hope over experience.
Published 27 Apr, 2024 06:30am
Valuable lessons can be drawn from the experience of countries that reformed and prospered.
Updated 23 Sep, 2023 09:25am
The current crisis is very different from past ones in nature, scope as well as severity.
Updated 14 Sep, 2023 09:21am
Pakistan is closer than ever to becoming a ‘zombie’ state.
Updated 13 Apr, 2023 09:42am
