This is apropos a Business Recorder news item “IMF MD warns Covid-19 leaving some states behind” carried by the newspaper on Thursday. According to it, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called upon the Group of 20 countries should take strong policy actions to reverse a “dangerous divergence” that threatens to leave most developing countries languishing for years.

That the IMF Managing Director’s “deep” concern is legitimate is a fact. But the head of the lender of the last resort is required to take some policy initiatives aimed at relaxing the conditionalities that it imposes on the borrowers. Pakistan is one of them. Increase in power tariffs is one such conditionality that the people of Pakistan are facing in the midst of the pandemic.

Adnan Khan (Islamabad)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021