The Illusion of Vision: Uraan Pakistan- How Pakistan’s Supreme Planner Became the Hulagu Khan of the Economy of Pakistan

When I look back across the decades, I realize that some lives are changed not by grand proclamations, but by the quiet, indelible architecture of a single moment. In the spring of 1981, as I stood finishing my high school studies in Islamabad, my eyes were constantly drawn to the soaring, unfinished frame of the sixteen-story Shaheed-e-Millat Secretariat, a concrete titan rising just beyond my doorstep in F-6/1. Transfixed by its towering monolith while completing my matric at FG High School Islamabad, I pressed my father to tell me how a simple mind could design something so grand and enduring. His answer was absolute: to shape the world, you must first become an engineer at the prestigious University of Engineering and Technology (UET) in Lahore. Driven by that singular, relentless conviction, I persisted until my father finally brought me to those historic grounds.

Yet it was not the grand arches of academia that forever altered my destiny that day. Standing amidst the university’s lawns, history etched itself into my memory as we encountered a fierce young student leader holding an audience spellbound with thunderous valour. It was Ahsan Iqbal, then a prominent voice of the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, whose impassioned voice resonated so deeply that its echo lingered long after we left. When I formally entered UET Lahore in 1984, that moment remained my touchstone. Around 1987, when the Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba again invited him to speak once more, his rhetoric had matured into a soaring, masterly eloquence, bearing the powerful, historic cadence of Martin Luther King Jr., whose speeches I had watched on television. Fresh from completing his MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Ahsan Iqbal became a living legend for me. Right there, after almost 45 years, I chose my lifelong role model.

Though we never met in person, I watched his journey unfold over the years with a wide-eyed boy’s devotion. When he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of Pakistan with the status of Minister of State in 1996 and launched the historic Pakistan Vision 2010 in 1997, my aspirations touched the sky. Seeing my hero chart a bold roadmap to transform Pakistan into an Asian Economic Tiger affirmed my belief in the transformative power of visionary leadership.

There is a profound, aching tragedy in watching the collapse of such an idol, not because they simply fade away, but because the grand architecture of hope they built in your mind turns out to be made of hollow air.

When the news broke a week ago- that silent, heavy statistic from the World Bank declaring that Pakistan’s poverty rate has surged, leaving the nation to account for 48% of the extremely poor across the Greater Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (MENAAP) region, slipping beneath even the shadow of Afghanistan- it did not merely report an economic reality. It felt like a fracture in the sky. It coincided with the candid admission from Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi that the country’s system of governance has completely collapsed. For someone who believed in Ahsan Iqbal for four decades, this was not just a policy failure; it was a devastating personal betrayal that leaves me weeping tears of blood.

In the rhythmic, unsparing truth of the human heart, one must ask: What becomes of a vision when its chief architect presides over the systematic crumbling of the very house he swore to build? To look back at the shadow of 1981, the raw concrete of the Shaheed-e-Millat Secretariat in Islamabad, the fiery idealism on the lawns of UET Lahore, the soaring promises of a Wharton-honed intellect, and the grandiose blueprints of Pakistan Vision 2010, Vision 2025, and Uraan Pakistan, is to trace a trajectory that promised prosperity, but delivered a landscape of quiet, systemic desperation. In my judgment, these grand slogans were nothing more than stories of science fiction, crafted meticulously to keep him alive within the corridors of power and to construct a carefully curated myth of how good an economic planner he was.

Let us be completely clear, stripped of euphemisms: this was never about personal corruption or thievery. He was investigated by NAB on corruption charges, but he came out a clean man, and I was proud of him in those moments. The tragedy is far more insidious. Ahsan Iqbal has been, by the evidence of results, a no-show in national planning, an architect of monumental incompetence who mistook endless presentations, glossy slide decks, and superficial press conferences for actual progress. Yet he is an undisputed master at generating tickers for the media. He crafts slick, short TV soundbites, sensationalising to 260 million Pakistanis grandiose promises “to make Pakistan a trillion-dollar economy,” while in reality, the record, as I read it, shows a planner who consistently served his own political agenda.

Look closely at his priorities: securing his political grip and keeping his son’s legislative seat alive in Narowal. Even local institutions, the University of Narowal, bear his heavy hand; he maintains an iron grip over the appointments at the University of Narowal, seeking, in my view, to control it as a personal fiefdom long into retirement.

To give credit where it is bitterly due, my role model proved to be the ultimate planner on a micro scale: the best planner for himself, his family, and his circle. While the nation struggled under staggering inflation, he mastered the art of globetrotting, flying from continent to continent, attending endless conferences, symposiums, and international seminars at state expense. His domestic patronage was equally peerless: his sister, Aisha Humera Chaudhry, a Grade-22 officer, was appointed as a member of the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) for three years; his son ascended as an MPA; and his brother Mustafa Kamal rotated through administrative plums like the chairmanship of the Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) in the last tenure of PML-N from 2013 to 2018.

In my assessment, the members of the Planning Commission are his handpicked loyalists. I do not doubt that a true forensic audit of the Planning Commission, including its appointment process and the contacts that preceded each appointment, would show where responsibility for this catastrophe lies. I call for that audit. Everyone inside his inner circle thrived, wrapped in state patronage, while the republic suffocated. Like a modern-day Hulagu Khan who methodically leveled the grand structures of the Abbasid Caliphate, Ahsan Iqbal has, in my view, done the same to the economy of Pakistan: razing its fiscal foundations, burning its future to ash, and leaving behind a smoking ruin.

Nowhere was this administrative void more catastrophic than on the CPEC and energy front. Vetted, selected, and relentlessly greenlit by the Planning Commission under his watch, Pakistan was shackled to a disastrous energy matrix. He repeatedly sold imported coal power projects and LNG-fired projects to the nation, claiming that imported coal-fired power plants (such as those in Sahiwal, Port Qasim, and Hub) and CPEC energy infrastructure would be “game-changers.” Instead, they proved to be a devastating debt trap.

The rush toward imported coal and expensive, volatile LNG-fired projects, including the multi-billion-dollar long-term take-or-pay contracts with Qatar, turned into what my own data puts at a monumental $50 billion blunder. While the rest of the world pivoted toward sustainable futures, our supreme planner locked a developing nation into dirty, high-cost, imported fossil fuels. The result? Unbearable, skyrocketing electricity tariffs and gas costs that have forced the widespread closure of industrial units across the country, creating massive unemployment and feeding deepening waves of political unrest, rather insurgency across Balochistan, Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK), and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK). Energy did not fuel the economy; it dragged Pakistan down into a cycle of circular debt exceeding Rs 5,200 billion, until millions fell into poverty and the country became a global begging bowl, cap in hand, weeping at international forums about climate disasters that its own fossil-fuel lock-in helped exacerbate.

This is the heart of the case, and it must be stated plainly. The heavy levy on petrol and diesel that burdens every citizen today is not, at its root, the IMF’s creation, whatever the nation is being told. The IMF is the messenger at the door; the debt was written inside the house. Capacity payments, take-or-pay obligations, and circular debt created the fiscal hole, and the levy is how that hole is being filled from the pockets of ordinary Pakistanis. This economic devastation, industrial collapse, and widespread social unrest stand today as the ultimate, tragic “gift” of the Planning Commission’s energy choices to the nation.

I am not an auditor, nor a white-collar expert, nor do I represent any accountability institution like NAB, FIA, or an anti-corruption agency. I am a hardcore engineer whose foundation is mathematics, and I fell into deep depression and was shocked to find that my hero and role model became a member of the Board of Governors (BOG) of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in the year 2008. This is the same NGO that is on record, opposed the development of the Kalabagh Dam, a position that proved catastrophic for the power sector through its long-term impact on natural gas reserves, by shifting electricity generation from hydropower to gas-fired power plants. Had Kalabagh Dam been completed, gas reserves would, by my calculation, have been enough for industry and the commercial sector until the year 2050, but Pakistan was exhausted by burning gas for power. I ask my hero Ahsan Iqbal to check these facts personally, including how Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri, ED of SDPI, opposed the unlocking of shale gas, and to examine the series of reports that, in my reading, discouraged the cultivation of cotton by describing cotton picking as injurious to the fertility of women and men.

Would Ahsan Iqbal, as a responsible BOG member, conduct a financial audit of SDPI to show the 260 million Pakistanis and the global community how much foreign funding SDPI received and its true impact on the ground? The foreign funding received by SDPI is in the name of 260 million Pakistanis, not for global tours and 5-star hotel stays. I cry with tears of blood knowing that, as a board member, Ahsan Iqbal made Dr. Abid the lifetime ED of SDPI, so that it is mocked today as “Suleri’s Development Personal Initiative” (SDPI).

I was stunned when Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri was appointed by Ahsan Iqbal as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF), directly under the Ministry of Planning. Disaster risk management is a specialized engineering field dealing with landslides, floods, glacier retreat, and earthquakes, whereas Dr. Abid’s background is in agriculture. In my view, this Himalayan blunder looks like compensation for a friend and district fellow. As an engineer, my hero knows that Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in engineering is the practice of designing, building, and maintaining infrastructure to withstand natural or man-made hazards.

As Ahsan Iqbal claims to be a practicing Muslim, will he ask the Auditor General of Pakistan, FIA, SECP, or NAB to conduct a performance audit of SDPI? Can he tell us how many trees or water plants were installed by SDPI beyond generating colourful reports and holding inaugurations in five-star hotels? My heart bleeds seeing my hero as a BOG member of SDPI, an organization campaigning since 2013 to revise the Indus Waters Treaty to incorporate climate change, the very narrative India used while suspending the treaty on April 23, 2025. Has he asked Dr. Abid, who in my assessment, severely lacks expertise in climate change, hydrology, and hydraulic structures, how Pakistan can control the climate and water flowing from Himachal Pradesh and Indian-administered Kashmir? It would have been far better if Dr. Abid had demanded real-time river flow and discharge data through CWC and the India-WRIS portal, maintained since 2008.

Furthermore, did Ahsan Iqbal know, as a BOG member, that Dr. Abid received a contract for a door-to-door survey from BISP in 2019, which, according to the documents I hold, was declared fake and done on a desk, leading BISP management to demand a refund of Rs 2.25 billion? It is a tragic incident that a contractor against whom BISP sought such a refund became a member of the BOG of BISP with the support of my role model. Credit goes to the DGs and staff of BISP who preferred to resign rather than endure unprecedented pressure, and to the Secretary of BISP, who continues to resist these tactics to protect funds meant for the poorest of the poor.

Along with over 4,500 engineers, we are filing petitions concerning Dr. Abid with the UN, UNDP, UNFCCC, World Bank, ADB, EU and the Government of Canada, as he is, I am told, a Canadian national, and we believe he makes Pakistan a joke and treats it as a source of income.

I still hold hope that my hero and role model, Ahsan Iqbal, will direct Dr. Abid, ED of SDPI, to refund the money to BISP, and will instruct NAB, AGP, FIA, and SECP to conduct a performance audit of SDPI. I hope my hero will also ask the competent authorities to examine, under the law, including the Treason Act, whether the evidence of sabotage of the water, energy, food, and economic security of Pakistan warrants a case, as the evidence mounts. My hero cannot undo the economic damage caused by LNG and coal-fired power plants, but he can act on what 4,500 engineers recommend regarding Dr. Abid and SDPI.

The tragedy of power in Pakistan is that it so often dresses itself in the vocabulary of high-tech progress while quietly suffocating the people it was meant to elevate. When a role model transitions from the radical valour of youth to the entrenched, incompetent corridors of state governance, the failure ceases to be academic. It is written on the fragile bodies of millions who go to sleep hungry tonight, crushed under inflation, crippling electricity rates, industrial collapse, and unkept promises.

What a great tragedy it is. How heartbreaking is my life that my hero, my role model, the man I looked up to as the nation’s premier intellectual mind since my school days in 1981, became in reality, a villain for the economy of Pakistan and 260 million souls, and that I must carry the grief of knowing I invested my dreams in a grand facade.

Finally, I will say it plainly, because it is what I feel in my heart: I believe this story is already making its place in the lecture halls and research rooms of the world. I believe that in time, universities and think tanks will study how a vision on paper can become a ruin on the ground. And I believe that, in the memory of a nation that has paid for these decisions, the name of my hero will live on as the “Hulagu Khan of Pakistan’s economy.” It is a title I give with a broken heart, and it is the sorrow of my own conscience that the name of the man I once held highest will endure, until the Day of Judgment, as the fake planner who razed the house he swore to build.