Unfounded Optimism.

The Prime Minister's praise for his team on their 'economic turnaround' is a little too premature if the entire picture of the economy is taken into consideration. Either the government is seeing something the rest of the country is missing, or its perception of the state of the economy is completely off the mark. The ruling party's reasons for its optimism seem to be grounded in the decrease in the Current Account Deficit (CAD) and the increase in foreign investment, exports and remittances. While all of this is good news, other factors lie completely ignored.

As far as expected indicators of a negative outlook of the economy are concerned, many expected ones came about as a direct result from the government's policies. Increased interest rates, a free-floating (and depreciating) currency and massive inflation in everything from the cost of food to energy - increasing the cost of production even further, continuing the inflationary cycle - are all issues that the government and the public were aware would take place once the government adjusted its policies to fulfil the IMF programme criteria. The Prime Minister's solution, however, leaves much to be desired. Simply ordering his cabinet to stabilise food prices, when politicians know full well that such directives are never actually implemented across the board, tells us that the cabinet has no answers and the general masses will continue to feel the worst pinch as a...

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