Pakistan’s Biggest Macro Constraint Is Corruption: The IMF Finally Says the Quiet Part Loud—And Then Does Little to Stop It! |
On November 19, 2025, the Ministry of Finance dutifully uploaded the IMF’s Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment (GCDA) for Pakistan. The 190-page document is, by the Fund’s normally bloodless standards, astonishingly blunt.
It declares in measured but merciless prose that governance failures and corruption are not peripheral irritants in Pakistan; they are the central macroeconomic constraint, draining a significant percentage of GDP every single year—many trillions vanishing into elite pockets, offshore accounts, and plain old cash envelopes, an amount larger than the entire federal divisible pool.
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The findings are brutal and familiar:
The IMF even attaches a price tag to salvation: credible implementation of its 15-point matrix could add 5–6.5 percentage points to GDP growth over five years. Mandatory e-governance in procurement and tax filing within 12 months, full public disclosure of every SIFC deal, hard budget constraints, an end to routine tax amnesties, operational autonomy for the FBR -the list is specific, sensible, and politically radioactive.
But there lies the economic rub. For all its candor, the GCDA is a toothless ritual. Unlike Sri........