The government’s planned fuel relief package has expectedly attracted International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) ire with the latter making it clear to the former that the planned fuel subsidiy plan is one of the remaining points that are required to be settled between the two prior to the signing of a staff level agreement (SLA) to unlock the stalled tranche.
This development clearly shows that the finalisation of the deal is going to be hamstrung by further delay to the utter chagrin of country’s beleaguered economy.
The question is: who should be held responsible for such delay? Or, who is responsible for this impasse? The PDM government or the IMF? In my view, the government has to be blamed for two broad reasons.
Firstly, the planned fuel subsidy scheme is marred by a host of flaws and deficiencies, some of which have been identified by Business Recorder in the main editorial of its Saturday’s issue.
Secondly, announcing any scheme or plan based on government subsidies or special grants without taking the lender of last resort into confidence amounts to reneging on commitments by the recipient of the lending. The government is fully aware of the criticality of IMF’s conditionalities.
That is why perhaps it has asked the petroleum minister to speak to global media on this matter as neither the prime minister nor the finance minister is in the picture insofar as the planned fuel scheme is concerned. I don’t think the IMF will ever acquiesce to incumbent government’s fuel subsidy plan for some obvious reasons.
Saadat Husain Orakzai (Peshawar)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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