Finance Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar on Thursday assured that details of the staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will be made public.
Speaking at the Senate Committee of the Whole, the minister said once the staff agreement is signed, it will be put on the website of the Finance Ministry and nothing will be concealed.
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The minister said that the regime of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf had signed an agreement with IMF in 2019.
The Finance Minister said he believes in transparency and fiscal discipline in the country.
Responding to the points raised earlier in the Committee, he said nobody in Pakistan can compromise on the nuclear and missile assets of the country. “We are responsible citizens of Pakistan, we represent the people of Pakistan and we are here to guard the national interest of the country” he added.
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He further said that Pakistan was a sovereign nation and nobody in the world had the right to tell us what range of missiles we should have.
FinMin Dar said that the incumbent government did not enter into the ongoing agreement with the IMF and noted that it was the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led administration that had entered into the programme in 2019.
“This programme should have been completed in 2022,” he said, castigating the PTI regime for succumbing to IMF demands including the autonomy of the State Bank of Pakistan.
He said that previously, there were reviews that were completed, but now, it seems that every review has become a “new programme, which is very uncustomary with the IMF”.
The finance minister said the delay is not on part of the incumbent government and claimed that they have been involved in extensive engagements with the IMF which are “unusual, too lengthy, too long, too demanding”.
“We have completed everything. Let me tell you […] that some friendly countries made commitments to bilaterally support Pakistan and IMF is now asking that they should actually complete and materialise those commitments.”
“That’s the only delay and I can assure the house that the moment it is done and the staff-level agreement is signed, I will make sure that the Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) is uploaded on the website,” the finance minister said.
IMF’s funding is crucial for Pakistan as it faces a balance of payment crisis and the SBP-held foreign exchange reserves have also fallen to nearly a month’s import cover.