Advisor to Prime Minister on Finance Shaukat Tarin on Monday said Pakistan would get $4 billion from donors in the upcoming Tokyo meeting in April for poverty reduction and bringing about improvement in health and education sectors.
"We will collect $4 billion in donors meeting for poverty, health and education," said the advisor here on Monday briefing media about plan he would present before Friends of Pakistan in Tokyo to convince them to help Pakistan which suffered great damage on economic and security fronts in war on terror.
"We have not been able to focus on social sector because of financial constraints owing to increased spending on security," said the advisor along with Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira who said anything compromising the national interest would not be accepted.
He said that two back-to-back meetings of Friends of Pakistan and donors would be held on April 17 with pledges to come by the post-lunch meeting of donors. A briefing would be given to the FoP in the pre-lunch session wherein they would be apprised that Pakistan is faced with growing threat of terrorism. This growing menace was the consequence of Afghanistan and Pakistan support to global war on terror after 9/11 resulted in spread across Pakistan destroying its economy and causing massive loss of lives.
Tarin said damage to Pakistan economy for being partners in war on terror was $8 billion alone in 2008. So far he said the country has suffered $35 billion brunt to its economy but terrorism threat was increasing and due to this menace, the minister said, no investors was coming to Pakistan because of fear, a price Pakistan has been paying for being ally in war on terror. Because of growing terrorism threats, the advisor said even the local investors are closing down their units. The number of industrial units has come down from 2200 to just 590 because investors are unwilling to invest in this unsecure environment.
Tarin said in this background meeting of FoP was scheduled and Pakistan would share its problems with the member countries and apprise them that it could not pay attention to social sector because it had to pool all resources towards security. Pakistan needs $4 billion for two years to streamline social sector, he added.
He said that friend countries are also expected to help 0.3 million people who were internally displaced because of ongoing global war. Tarin said some countries in the forum view Pakistan having no economic plan and he would be briefing them about the government 9-point agenda of economic turnaround. They would be apprised in detail about the salient feature of the plan that envisages safety nets on top agenda to bring people out of poverty.
He said he would also be sharing with them the household survey in the pipeline to determine the income of each and every household to bring the deserving families in the safety net. On the basis of this determination, the families would be issued Benazir Income Support Cards (BISP), provided health insurance of Rs 20000 and its members would be given technical training to make the family stand on its own feet.
Also, they would be sharing the plan to improve productivity of agriculture and manufacturing sectors because both of them cater to the maximum in the country. They would be apprised about the integrated energy plan to meet the future needs of the country. The issues of education, health, infrastructure and capital market would be other sector to be discussed with the Friends of Pakistan during the meeting in Tokyo.
The advisor said that 9-point economic plan would be shared with the FoP as well as security and setting up a trust fund for development of NWFP and Balochistan. There would be no pledging in the FoP session prior to lunch and only briefing would be given on the Pakistan plan for economic improvement.
He said Pakistan received massive assistance three times in the past but this was never used to remove the structural problem. Kaira said that Pakistan would not compromise on national interests for aid. We want the Friends to help Pakistan in moving towards transparency, he added.
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