Pakistan Industrial and Traders Associations Front (PIAF) has strongly criticised tough condationalities of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for restarting negotiations with government. PIAF has urged the government to get rid of the IMF at the earliest and adopt independent economic policies in the larger interest of the country as progress and prosperity would always remain a dream in the presence of WB and IMF.
Chairman PIAF, Sohail Lashari in a statement on Wednesday said that the IMF dictates were complicating the economic situation and pushing the country to the wall therefore it would be wiser on the part of government to take decisions keeping in view the ground realities. He said that country was enriched with the mineral resources worth trillions of dollars that are enough to bring country out of economic mire but instead of utilising available resources, the government is depending on global donors.
Pakistan is in dire need of home-grown policies, as it is a proven fact that the countries engaged with IMF or World Bank can never progress. He urged the government to evolve an economic strategy in consultation with stakeholders so that economic activities could be expedited. He said that the government should take all the stakeholders including representative of the private sector on board while evolving the proposed economic strategy. As the private sector has both the will and the ability to end economic turmoil, he added.
Lashari said that government should form a think tank comprising representatives of public and private sector for evolving the economic strategy. The government should also constitute sectoral committees including textile, leather, engineering and agriculture to tape the potential, he said adding that government should remove bottlenecks in the way of economic activities and improve the fast declining industrial growth rate. He said the federal and provincial governments should tighten their belt with a view to put the economy on track as growing gap between revenue and expenditure is increasing the vulnerability of fiscal framework.