ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said that the government and the IMF would sign agreement within a couple of days, leading to the release of next tranche. He stated this while leaving for Doha, Qatar, to participate in the concluding phase of Pakistan-IMF talks for the resumption of loan.
Talking to the media at the Karachi Airport, Ismail expressed hope that an agreement with the Fund would be finalised within two days and he would return with good news from the IMF about loan’s resumption.
He, however, hinted that the government has no plans to remove the subsidies given on the prices of petrol and electricity, adding that he would try to convince the IMF that Pakistan cannot afford to do this.
“Give me some break. I cannot remove subsidies [on petrol and electricity prices]. The nation cannot afford it.”
He also criticized the former Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin for claiming that he left the money to fund these subsidies, adding that Tarin used to be a technocrat till this age, but now he talks like Imran Khan’s young supporters.
Ismail said before becoming the finance minister, he received a presentation from the finance secretary. According to it, the previous government left a primary deficit of Rs5600b for the federal government.
“You didn’t leave any money so stop lying,” he said to Tarin.
Talking about the current year’s projected growth at around six percent, Ismail said the figure of 5.97percent growth was only achieved when the previous government modified the formula to calculate the growth.
“The IMF is saying that the economy is growing too fast [at six percent] that is leading to the current account deficit,” said the economy.
He added that the IMF wants the economy to be slowed down, and they want it to be done by hiking the interest rate.
Criticizing the performance of the previous government, he said former Prime Minister Imran Khan left economic landmines everywhere – be it the current account deficit, record imports or Rs20,000b borrowing, which he claimed was 80percent of the loans taken by all former prime ministers of Pakistan.
He also said that the former prime minister was the reasons that the talks with the IMF were not taking place in Pakistan, adding that the global lender didn’t want to come due to the political uncertainty and the upcoming PTI long march.
Replying to Tarin’s claim that the current government sought his help to fix the economy, Ismail said there was no hope of any help from some one who left the economy on ventilator.
“I would ask everyone to check the balance sheets of Silk Bank and Candyland and then decide who knows how to run the economy.”
