The People Are Paying the Bill. Who Is Choosing the Priorities?

At a petrol pump in Pakistan, a national crisis can shrink to one question: can I put enough fuel in the motorcycle to get to work?

Not a question about constitutional amendments. Not a question about who is meeting which general, which party is returning to power, or whether Imran Khan will be released. Just fuel. Enough for the commute. Enough to get home. Enough left in the wallet for flour, milk, medicine, or the electricity bill.

That is the Pakistan most people live in.

The Pakistan discussed by people in power is often a different country. It is a country of power struggles, political families, official aircraft, diplomatic receptions, military titles, and carefully managed public appearances. Imran Khan, Shehbaz Sharif, Nawaz Sharif, Maryam Nawaz, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Asif Ali Zardari and Field Marshal Asim Munir all appear in the national conversation, sometimes as leaders and sometimes as symbols of something larger.

The ordinary citizen appears too, but usually as a number: the taxpayer, the consumer, the voter, the beneficiary of a relief package, the person asked to show patience.

Patience is not a policy. It is what people are told to provide when the people making decisions do not want to provide answers.

A Country Trapped in Its Power Conversation

Pakistan has spent years arguing over who truly controls the state. Imran Khan was removed as prime minister through a no-confidence vote in April 2022. He has remained in prison since 2023 while facing multiple cases that he and his legal team reject; Reuters has documented the legal and political background behind his imprisonment. His party remains a political force even when he is physically absent from the campaign stage.

The 2024 election made the picture even more complicated. Independent candidates, most of them backed by Khan’s PTI, won more seats than any other group, while PML-N became the largest parliamentary party and PPP, led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, held the balance needed for a coalition. The Inter-Parliamentary Union’s election record records the resulting coalition led by Shehbaz Sharif.

So the government became a partnership between political rivals who had previously helped remove Khan from power. The Sharif family returned to the centre. The Bhutto-Zardari family remained essential to the governing arrangement. Maryam Nawaz became chief minister of Punjab. The formal institutions continued to operate, but the public argument about power never stopped.

Then came Asim Munir’s elevation. In May 2025, the federal cabinet approved the army chief’s promotion to field marshal, a rank last held by Ayub Khan. The government described it as recognition of military leadership during the conflict with India. The President’s Office recorded the investiture, with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif presenting the baton.

The ceremony was a documented state event. The argument about what it means for civilian power is political interpretation. But the concern is not imaginary. Pakistan has a long history of military influence over politics, and observers have warned that elevating a sitting army chief into an extraordinary public position can make the civilian government look less like the centre of power and more like one part of a larger arrangement.

This is not an argument that Imran Khan was perfect, that PTI governed without failures, or that every criticism of the military is automatically correct. It is an argument against a political system that keeps reducing the country to personalities. Every side says the other side is the problem. Every side promises accountability when it is outside power and discovers nuance when it gets inside.

The names change. The public’s position does not.

Every Bill Arrives as a Test of Patience

The government does not need to explain the crisis in complicated language to an ordinary family. The petrol pump explains it. The electricity bill explains it. The grocery shop explains it.

On October 10, 2026, the reported petrol price was Rs398.30 per litre and high-speed diesel was Rs396.24. A September report by Dawn recorded petrol at Rs390.79 per litre and diesel at Rs424.92 after another revision. These changes may look small when written as paisas or a few rupees, but transport prices do not stop with the motorcycle. They move through the entire supply chain: deliveries, bus fares, vegetables, construction materials, school transport, and the cost of getting to work.

Electricity is its own monthly ambush. In September, NEPRA’s adjustments were reported as adding as much as Rs2.58 per unit and roughly Rs46 billion to consumer bills. The details are technical, but the result is not. A household sees the total. It does not pay the bill in technical adjustments. It pays it in cash.

Short-term inflation, according to data reported by Dawn from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, reached 11.97 per cent year-on-year in the week ending October 8. That is an official measure, not just a feeling. But people do not experience inflation as an index. They experience it when a salary stays the same while everything else gets more expensive.

The poorest households do not have the luxury of absorbing a bad month. They cut meat first, then fruit, then transport, then medicine. They borrow. They delay school fees. They buy less food and call it budgeting because saying hunger out loud sounds too serious.

Yet the national response is often a request for sacrifice. Be patient. Conserve fuel. Reduce consumption. Pay your bills. Support the economy. Accept higher prices because the country is in a difficult phase.

Fine. But sacrifice has to travel upward too.

The Jet, the Receipt, and the Question of Public Assets

In September, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz travelled to London for her daughter’s graduation on a provincial government aircraft. This is not a social-media rumour. Dawn reported that the trip took place and that the Punjab government defended it by saying Maryam paid the expenses herself.

Maryam later said she paid nearly Rs27.5 million from her own pocket. Geo reported her explanation, including her claim that a receipt would be made available.

That is the official answer. It should be taken seriously. It should also be checked.

There are two different questions here. The first is: who paid for the flight? The government’s answer is that Maryam did. The second is: was a public aircraft used for a private family trip under a clear, published rule, and does the amount paid cover the full cost of fuel, crew, maintenance, landing, and the aircraft’s use?

An invoice can answer the first question. It cannot answer the second by itself.

The issue becomes more uncomfortable because the Punjab government had already faced questions about the aircraft’s purchase and the lack of transparency around it. In May 2026, Dawn reported that the chief minister’s office denied right-to-information requests seeking details about the jet, official tours, vehicles, and related expenditure.

I am not calling the London trip corruption without evidence. That would be irresponsible. I am saying that when a state asset is used privately, the public is entitled to more than a minister’s social-media defence. It is entitled to the approval, the cost calculation, and the receipt.

The same logic applies to the recurring shoe stories that circulate whenever a politician is photographed in expensive clothing. The most clearly documented Maryam Nawaz shoe allegation I found was not a claim that she spent millions of rupees on custom shoes. In 2020, Punjab minister Fayyazul Hassan Chohan alleged that she wore shoes worth Rs250,000. PML-N leader Azma Bukhari responded by accusing him of an obsession with the brand and cost of Maryam’s shoes. The exchange was reported in this contemporary account, but I found no authenticated invoice, independent valuation, or proof that public money paid for the shoes.

There is also a separate, well-documented 2019 story involving Imran Khan’s famous Peshawari sandals. Shoemaker Nooruddin Shinwari made snakeskin sandals as an Eid gift; wildlife officials seized the footwear and fined him Rs50,000 after finding the leather was python skin. The fine was for the wildlife violation, not evidence that the sandals cost millions. The report by Press Trust of India is useful precisely because it separates the shoemaker, the gift, the material, and the fine.

The lesson is not that shoes are the biggest crisis in Pakistan. The lesson is that even public outrage needs evidence. If a claim is Rs250,000, do not inflate it into millions. If the money was private, say that. If a public asset was used, ask whether the rules and costs were disclosed.

Accountability is not a party slogan. It is a standard that should survive whoever is wearing the shoes.

The Green Passport and the Price of Ambition

The Pakistani passport is not a measure of Pakistani ability. It is a measure of how much confidence other states place in the country behind the document.

In May 2026, Dawn reported that Pakistan ranked 100th on the Henley Passport Index with access to 30 destinations without a prior visa. Later updates changed the number and position slightly, but not the larger reality: Pakistan remained near the bottom of global mobility rankings.

For a well-connected person, a weak passport is an inconvenience. For everyone else, it can become a wall.

A student applying to the United Kingdom must show the course fee and enough money to support themselves. Under the current GOV.UK financial requirements, that means £1,529 per month for up to nine months in London or £1,171 outside London, held for the required period, on top of tuition and other costs. The rules are legitimate immigration requirements. But legitimacy does not make them easy for a Pakistani family whose savings are held in rupees and whose income can be destroyed by one medical emergency or one currency shock.

That is where Laiba Ijaz’s story becomes more than a crime report.

Recent reporting described Laiba as a gold-medal-winning graduate of the International Islamic University Islamabad who wanted to continue her education in the United States. Her family told journalists that an agent promised admission and a scholarship, including a Harvard-related opportunity, and that they paid millions. The figures differ across the reports: Geo cited the family saying around Rs7 million, while an Express Tribune report said the FIA’s preliminary investigation put the alleged receipts at Rs9.3 million, including cash and bank transfers.

The differences matter because this is an active investigation, not a finished court judgment. What is documented is that a suspect was arrested, the FIA registered a case against two people, and investigators alleged that fake scholarship letters, university offer letters, and fee receipts had been prepared. The family said Laiba’s father sold a plot and that her mother’s jewellery was used to raise money. Geo reported that police were awaiting the post-mortem report.

Reports described her death as suicide, but that should not be turned into a confident claim about cause or motive while the investigation and post-mortem process are still relevant. The respectful thing is to say what is known: a young woman was found dead after her family says she discovered that documents connected to her education plan were fake; an alleged fraud investigation followed; and a suspect was arrested.

The rest of the country can argue over the exact amount. Her family lost money that was meant to buy a future. Her father was not funding a holiday. He was trying to fund an education that was supposed to lift his daughter and perhaps the whole household.

This is where the phrase “green passport” stops being an abstract ranking. A student can have the marks, the medal, the discipline, and the ambition. Then she has to prove her finances to one institution, her intentions to another, her documents to a third, and her credibility to everyone. One fake agent can turn that process into a family disaster.

Foreign Policy Can Produce Applause. Can It Produce Opportunity?

Pakistan’s relationship with Donald Trump has become a masterclass in political optics.

The documented events are real. In September 2025, Trump met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir in the Oval Office, as recorded by the White House. In February 2026, Pakistan’s Foreign Office announced that Shehbaz would attend the inaugural session of Trump’s Board of Peace in Washington. Trump later praised Pakistan’s leaders and described Pakistan as helpful in talks involving Iran; Dawn reported his comments.

The government is entitled to present these engagements as diplomatic successes. Pakistan should use every available relationship to protect its interests, attract investment, and prevent regional conflict.

But public praise is not the same as public benefit.

A photograph in the Oval Office does not reduce a student’s bank-balance requirement. Being called a great leader does not lower the petrol price. A role in regional mediation does not automatically create jobs, repair the electricity system, or make a Pakistani passport easier to trust.

Pakistan’s foreign policy has often moved in seasons: close when Washington needs security cooperation, distant when the immediate crisis passes. A December 2025 Dawn report on a Pakistan-US discussion quoted the description of the relationship as seasonal and warned that the current opening was tied to Trump’s priorities, including counterterrorism, critical minerals, and crypto.

That criticism is political opinion, not a settled fact. But it asks the right question: are we building a relationship that serves Pakistan, or are we simply trying to remain useful to whichever powerful government is currently in the room?

Who Is This Country Asking to Pay?

It is easy to become cynical and say all politicians are the same. It is also lazy. They are not identical, and governments do make decisions that help people. But the standard should not be lowered because every party has its own hypocrisy file.

The question is more basic than party loyalty.

Why does the ordinary person have to prove sacrifice every day while powerful people only explain themselves after a photograph, a leak, a viral post, or a newspaper investigation?

Why must a motorcyclist decide whether to buy fuel or groceries while the state debates the acceptable private use of a government aircraft?

Why does a student with a gold medal have to risk her family’s savings with an agent because a fair, trusted pathway to global education feels so inaccessible?

Why is a weak passport treated as the citizen’s personal misfortune rather than as evidence of a country that has failed to build enough trust, stability, and opportunity?

The government will say the economy is improving. The opposition will say the government is illegitimate. The military will say national security comes first. Political families will promise delivery. Foreign leaders will offer praise when Pakistan becomes useful to them.

Meanwhile, people will keep calculating.

One more litre. One less meal. One delayed fee. One borrowed payment. One application abandoned because the bank balance could not tell the story of the student’s ability.

The uncomfortable question is not whether Pakistanis can make more sacrifices. They have already proved that they can.

The uncomfortable question is: when will the people who control Pakistan’s money, institutions, public assets, and political priorities be required to make the same kind of sacrifice, publish the same kind of evidence, and answer to the same standard of accountability?

Sources

• Pakistan’s 2024 National Assembly election and coalition record - Inter-Parliamentary Union
• Why is Pakistan’s former PM Imran Khan in jail? - Reuters
• Cabinet approves Asim Munir’s promotion to field marshal - Dawn
• President and PM confer field marshal baton - President of Pakistan
• Petrol and diesel price revision - Dawn
• Short-term inflation data from PBS - Dawn
• Electricity adjustment and consumer burden - ProPakistani
• Maryam Nawaz’s London trip and official jet - Dawn
• Maryam Nawaz’s stated Rs27.5m repayment - Geo News
• RTI requests for jet and tour details denied - Dawn
• The documented Maryam Nawaz shoe allegation - Press News Agency
• The separate Imran Khan snakeskin sandal case - Firstpost / PTI
• Pakistan passport ranking - Dawn
• UK Student visa financial requirements - GOV.UK
• Laiba Ijaz case and FIA investigation - Geo News
• PM notice and suspect arrest details - The Express Tribune
• White House meeting with Shehbaz Sharif and Asim Munir
• Pakistan’s official announcement of Shehbaz’s 2026 US visit - Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Trump’s comments on Pakistan’s role in the Iran deal - Dawn
• The seasonal nature of Pakistan-US ties - Dawn