Miftah Ismail, the former finance minister who resurrected the stalled International Monetary Fund (IMF) last year during his tenure at the Q Block, has claimed that the Washington-based IMF doesn’t trust Ishaq Dar.
Miftah Ismail, in an exclusive interview with Geotv, dissected the main issues that, over the last year, conked out the critical deal with the IMF, plunging the country into a hydra-headed crisis of epic proportions.
“In last one and a half years we have three times made sovereign commitments and have then gone back on them…[former finance minister] Hafeez Sheikh made the commitments with the IMF during the release of the fourth, fifth, and sixth reviews when [Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan was the prime minister and as soon as IMF gives the money, Sheikh gets the axe.
“Shaukat Tarin comes in and tables a budget that has nothing to do with the IMF programme so that was the first time we broke our commitments. Then of course the IMF was not releasing the next tranche. Later, Tarin presented a mini-budget in November [2021] and agreed to a new IMF programme as soon as the money came in February, the Imran Khan government again reduced the prices of petroleum products. At that point, diesel was costing the government over Rs200 per litre and it was selling it for less than Rs150. This was the second time that we broke the commitment.”
Recalling the entire journey, Miftah said that in April he came to power and after much difficulty, Pakistan secured the IMF programme again but in reality IMF doesn’t trust Ishaq Dar.
Read Ishaq Dar rules out any possibility of default by Pakistan
“As soon as the money arrived in September I was fired. Dar sahib comes in and says, no I am going to look IMF in the eye and renegotiate this programme and this and that and keep the dollar at an artificially low rate. Our remittances and exports go through the floor and inflation through the roof. So I don’t see the point of all of this and then we began a third agreement with the IMF.”
“So now the IMF doesn’t really believe in Pakistan, but would you?” the former finance minister cross-questioned this scribe in a tone that reassured his words.
