ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has admitted that there are obstacles in implementing the International Monetary Fund program but said that the government is committed to completing the $7 billion program.
The minister made this statement at a time when the opposition is demanding the disclosure of assets of the army and judiciary as per the IMF condition.
It may be recalled that currently only the assets of government employees are disclosed. Briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance, the Finance Ministry also revealed that it too failed to meet the IMF condition regarding loan maturity, which further lengthened the queue of departments that have so far failed to meet some of the IMF conditions.
The Federal Board of Revenue and the provinces were already falling behind the IMF deadline, which led to the surprise visit of the IMF staff to Pakistan.
The Finance Minister, before closing the doors to the media, said that there are obstacles to be faced, but our administration is clear that we will complete this program and want to take the coalition partners along with us.
Syed Naveed Qamar of the PPP, while presiding over the meeting of the standing committee, said that the Finance Minister has requested to hold an in-camera meeting. The members of the committee opposed the minister’s request, but Naveed Qamar exercised his right and asked the media to leave the room.
Naveed Qamar said that this is a comprehensive program and obviously there will be obstacles in it. According to sources in the Ministry of Finance, the Sindh government is facing problems in implementing the National Fiscal Compact.
Secretary Finance Imdadullah Bosal briefed the committee on the status of implementation of the conditions agreed under the IMF program. He said that the Extended Fund Facility was a continuation of the previous IMF program, however, the briefing of the Finance Secretary to the Standing Committee revealed that the Ministry of Finance had also failed to fulfill this condition.
Bosal revealed that the ministry has not met the IMF’s condition of increasing the average maturity of local currency domestic debt to two years and eight months by the end of September.
The finance secretary further revealed that the condition of spending Rs685 billion on health and education during the first quarter has also not been met. The finance secretary also informed the standing committee that the FBR has not met its three-month target of Rs2.652 trillion and collected Rs89 billion less than this target.
In an interesting development, the Inland Revenue Service Officers Association (IRSOA) has issued a press statement and blamed the government for the tax shortfall. The statement further said that the policies being implemented by the FBR administration in the name of the so-called “transformation plan” have led to widespread dissatisfaction among FBR officers on the one hand and reduced revenue collection efforts on the other.
The association said that the recent large-scale transfers and postings, especially of junior officers to remote areas without providing basic facilities, have increased dissatisfaction.
Standing Committee Member Omar Ayub Khan said that I have recommended that the assets of the army and judiciary should also be disclosed under the IMF condition. Omar Ayub, while giving an in-camera briefing to the media, said that the Finance Minister and the Finance Secretary smiled meaningfully at my recommendation.
The Leader of the Opposition said that he had asked the Finance Ministry to provide details of the expenditure of the Special Investment Facilitation Council and the foreign investment that has come into Pakistan since its establishment.
