Unsurprisingly, eight out of 10 of the roughly 1,200 respondents of the online survey on Dawn.com last week expected no relief measures from the budget. And they were right. While called by many a ‘populist’ or ‘election’ budget, it had sparse little for the middle-income group — unless you happen to be a government employee for whom the coffers were opened. Among the respondents, 8pc were government servants who benefited, while the bulk were the salaried class who were left empty-handed as usual.

With continued uncertainty about funds from the IMF, six out of 10 people expect Pakistan to default without the lender’s help, though some believe that friendly countries will still bail the nation out. Nor do people expect elections to make much of a difference since only 20pc think an elected government can make a difference to the economy.

It is possible that the 3.5pc growth rate that the budget targets will be achieved, not so much because of an improvement in economic fundamentals but because of the low base effect and the illusion of political stability that elections can bring. Without the hard process of reforms, there can be no jobs, which is probably why eight out of 10 people do not expect the budget to create more jobs.

Indeed, other than an increase in development spending, which is a paltry part of the budget compared to debt servicing and running the government, there is precious little to spur on industrialisation.

And given the economic crisis, the most the government could do, which it did, was not increase taxes on the common man. Spurring growth through spending is out of its fiscal reach. Extending the tax net is out of the question since it could hurt its very fragile vote base.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, June 12th, 2023