New Delhi, June 16 (IANS) Even while poverty and unemployment have been on the rise in Pakistan and the debt-ridden economy has been continuously dependent on IMF funding to stave off a collapse, there has been no let-up in the defence spending with the Army Generals calling the shots in Islamabad, according to a new report.

Pakistan’s 2025–26 budget increased defence spending by more than 20 per cent to Rs 2.55 trillion ($9 billion), while overall federal expenditure which includes welfare measures for the masses was cut by 7 per cent, according to an article in Eurasia Review.

The Hangor programme, valued at $4–5 billion, is one of the most expensive military-industrial collaborations in Pakistan’s history. Pakistan’s 2025–26 defence allocation represents the fastest-growing item in the country’s budget, the full details of which have never been disclosed to elected representatives, the article points out.

Austerity measures required under the IMF programme have only exacerbated socioeconomic disparities and disproportionately impacted lower-income groups, even as challenges to long-term fiscal sustainability persist.

The structural question that Pakistan’s governance system has not been equipped to answer is whether defence and social spending must be zero-sum — and whether, with a tax-to-GDP ratio that remains well below regional and global peers, the trade-off the current budget imposes is genuinely unavoidable or a product of political choices about who bears the cost of fiscal adjustment.

The case for greater defence procurement accountability in Pakistan is gaining ground in economic and civil society circles. The question that is being raised is whether an allocation of funds on such a large scale, in a country operating under external financial assistance, should be subject to the same scrutiny applied to road contracts, hospital procurement, and social protection programmes, the article observes.

The article opines that the fragility of the Pakistani state which is driven in part by the fiscal trade-offs that accumulate when defence spending comes at the cost of human development gives cause for wider concern as it constitutes a potential threat to stability in the region.

–IANS

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