Pakistan has copper (around $197 billion), gold (around $116 billion), antimony (around $2 billion) and Rare Earth Elements (around $32 billion). Global prices for copper, gold, antimony and REEs are high. Strategic buyers for copper, gold, antimony and REEs exist. Demand is real.
Why does nothing move? Three failures. First, no single authority can say ‘go’. Second, federal–provincial overlap fragments decisions. Third, court stays freeze permits. The problem is not geology. It is command. This is not price failure. This is absence of command authority.
Pakistan has around 46,000MW of installed electricity capacity. Pakistan’s peak electricity demand is around 28,000–30,000MW. Electricity tariff has gone up from Rs20 per kWh range in 2020 to Rs40 per kWh in 2025. Yet the lights still go out. Why? Circular debt has crossed Rs3 trillion. State-owned DISCOs post annual losses of Rs500 billion. Total outstanding payments owed to IPPs are around Rs1.2 trillion. Prices moved. Cash didn’t. That is command failure, not market failure.
What do foreign investors say? They say, “We like Pakistan’s returns”. Then they add four caveats: contracts are not enforced on time; arbitration drags on for years; courts issue ex-post stay orders; and regulators contradict ministries. Remember, capital does not fear risk; capital fears indecision. This is not a market failure. It is a failure of the state’s command system.
Sixty-four per cent of Pakistanis are under 30. Pakistan’s working-age population (15–64) is expanding by about two million people every year. Yes, the demographic dividend exists. Yes, the private sector wants skills.
And yet the dividend is not materialising. Why? Four failures: the curriculum is disconnected from labour demand; provinces and center are misaligned; there is no national skills command; and there is no execution accountability. Labour markets are signalling demand. The state is not responding. Once again, this is command failure.
Here’s why IMF programmes cannot fix command failure: IMF programmes operate through prices, taxes, subsidies and accounting identities. They do not fix decision speed, jurisdictional overlap or federal–provincial command. Then there is the missing budgetary command. Provinces spend; the centre borrows. Liabilities are centralised; accountability is diffused. This, too, is command failure.
Pakistan does not lack capital, resources or foreign interest. Pakistan lacks a single economic command, statutory override authority and enforced timelines with accountability for outcomes.
Pakistan’s crisis is not economic misfortune; it is institutional design. History is witness that states do not fail because they lack resources. States fail when authority is fragmented, decisions are reversible, and accountability is absent. Command failure was survivable when Pakistan was less indebted. It is no longer survivable today. Debt arithmetic is tightening ($300 billion). Global capital is reallocating fast. Delay now does not preserve stability – it compounds fragility.
Red alert: Markets respond to prices , but capital responds to certainty. And certainty is not a market outcome; it is a command outcome.
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. He tweets/posts @saleemfarrukh and can be reached at: [email protected]
