That governance principle has been codified internationally through the Santiago Principles, the voluntary framework endorsed by the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds, which sets out standards on legal structure, institutional independence, transparent reporting and separation from short-term political or balance-of-payments objectives. The IMF’s own guidance, and the conditions it has attached to Pakistan’s amended sovereign wealth fund law, echo the same themes: a clear commercial mandate, prohibition on the fund financing routine government spending, prohibition on the central bank lending to it, audited IFRS-compliant accounts, and a board appointed on fit-and-proper criteria rather than political convenience.

Reforming Pakistan’s fund along these lines is not a substitute for fiscal discipline, and it must never be sold as one. Selling an asset generates cash once; managing it professionally can generate income for decades. A reformed institution should be built to hold assets, not merely to liquidate them. That means the legal authority to restructure loss-making entities under professional boards, to list minority stakes on the Pakistan Stock Exchange rather than sell entire companies abroad, to........

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