Pakistan paid $11b in last 10 months
Pakistan has timely paid its loans and in last 10 months, we have repaid 11 billion dollars, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar stated on Saturday.
“We will pay each foreign payment in time,” federal minister said in a statement.
“A strange mentality wants to see Pakistan in default, but those want the country in default have been proved wrong continuously for last several months,” he said.
“Pakistan has paid back one billion dollars of bonds in time,” he said.
“Confusion has been created about my attending the IMF meeting. There are speculations about my participation in the IMF session, schedule of which issued several weeks before these meetings,” Ishaq Dar said. “I had to leave for United States on April 10 to attend spring sessions of the World Bank and the IMF,” finance minister said.
“A constitutional crisis has been created. The court has ordered the government to release 21 billion rupees for holding elections in Punjab,” he said. “The federal government has been asked to release the amount to the election commission by April 10,” he said.
“The finance ministry has crucial responsibility with regard to the amount. “I have cancelled my US visit in these circumstances on the instructions of the prime minister,” Dar said.
“Previous government has gifted the country this financial and economic crisis. It is being said that the IMF has prevented me from attending the meeting. It could not do so, Pakistan has been a member of the World Bank and not a beggar,” finance minister said.
“How the IMF or World Bank could prevent me from the US visit,” he questioned. “I will remain present online in the spring meeting,” he further said.
Ishaq Dar said that everything required from Pakistan to conclude the much-delayed ninth review of a $7 billion loan programme with the International Monetary Fund was “now complete”, and the one final thing needed was a confirmation of a $1bn commitment from a friendly country.
Dar said that the government had already done all that was required from it to conclude the ninth review. He said that at the time of the seventh and eight reviews, two friendly countries had informed the IMF in writing about its offer to help Pakistan with its external account.
“The two-month delay from mid-February was due to this reason,” he said. “In the past two weeks, one of our friendly countries has again given them (the IMF) the confirmation [of its commitment to help Pakistan] with $2bn.
Dar acknowledged that there was a new development with the IMF deal over the past few weeks due to the “cross subsidy” in the works regarding fuel prices.
He said that the subsidy involved charging more to the affluent and providing relief to the underprivileged, adding that it had nothing to do with the budget. “We also had several rounds of communication with the IMF. As soon as that news broke they asked us ‘What are you trying to do?’ We gave them a satisfying answer because that subsidy is not a part of the budget.”
“When I went to the IMF with my delegation in October 2022, I invited them to Pakistan for the ninth review, which is technically the September 2022 review,” he said. “For unknown reasons, they finally came to Pakistan on January 2023.”
