Islamabad, April 8 (IANS) The government is "suffering from creeping paralysis" as there has been "a chronic, extended, and predictably ongoing failure" to effectively manage the economy, a Pakistani daily said Friday.

An editorial in the News International Friday said: "...there has been a chronic, extended, and predictably ongoing failure of this government to effectively manage the economy has been evidenced by the Asian Development Bank (report)".

It said that the latest ADB report presents a consolidated picture of the national finances, and "it is unlikely to be acted upon by this government any more than any other report that points to massive structural reform as the only way out of the alligator-filled swamp we are up to our necks in".

"After three years in office, the government can no longer play the 'we inherited these problems' card. What we have today is squarely at the door of a government suffering from creeping paralysis."

Noting that in virtually every area of the economy, the government has performed badly, it said: "Expenditures have been overrun, energy infrastructure continues its slow capsize under the burden of circular debt and there is a sustained decline in public and private investment as a loss of confidence by the business sector drives investment elsewhere."

The Asian Development Outlook (ADO) report, released Wednesday, says that inflation rate is the highest in the region and likely to rise to 16 percent in the coming financial year.

"For the poor - and that is most of us - this is a number that translates into less food than they already have, more expensive healthcare and transport. Poverty, says the report, has increased and notes that the government has, in the last three years, done nothing to objectively measure levels of poverty."