ON THE campaign trail, Imran Khan, Pakistan’s new prime minister, presented himself as the man to break the country’s addiction to hand-outs from the West. Whereas previous governments used to go begging to the IMF for funds, he said, his Pakistan Movement for Justice (PTI) would focus instead on recouping billions of dollars hidden from the taxman abroad. But after less than two months in office, Mr Khan reversed himself on October 8th. His finance minister announced that the government would, after all, be seeking a big loan from the IMF.

The economy’s troubles are not Mr Khan’s fault. The previous government, led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), lifted annual GDP growth to a ten-year high of more than 5%. But it did so on the back of expensive imports of fuel and machinery, even as its determination to prop up the Pakistani rupee hurt export industries such as textiles. The result has been dramatic growth in the current-account deficit since early 2016 (see left-hand chart). Foreign-exchange reserves have fallen sharply as a result (see right-hand chart). They currently stand at $8bn, which is not enough to cover the expected bill for imports and foreign-debt repayments until the end of the year. To keep the lights on (literally—many of Pakistan’s power plants run on imported coal), the government needs to find around $10bn in short order.

Even Mr Khan could see that Pakistan was going to need a loan. But for the past few weeks he has desperately been seeking alternatives to an IMF bail-out. In a televised address, he asked all Pakistanis living abroad to donate $1,000 apiece to the government, ostensibly to help pay for a big dam. To show that government funds would no longer be wasted, he has engaged in public displays of austerity. The government has auctioned off eight buffaloes kept to provide milk for the prime minister’s residence, along with 61 luxury cars.