This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed "Inequality: the gaping hole in IMF template" carried by the newspaper yesterday. The writer, Shabir Ahmed, has advanced a highly informed argument on the current IMF programme. According to him, "With luck, the IMF formula will give us macroeconomic stability. With greater luck, and over time, it will give us respectable GDP growth numbers. But there is little in the programme to address inequalities. Most likely, the better off will benefit leaving the poor to 'take the hindmost'."

I would like to add to his argument by making the following observation:

It is about time the global lending agency embarked upon soliciting proposals for the reform of its own conditionalities. Studies in relation to IMF conditionalities in Latin America, for example, have shown that the presence of an IMF loan does not affect democracy, loans with a high number of required 'reforms' have a negative effect on democratic practices. It is to be seen how the IMF lending ultimately plays out and how it affects democratic practices and processes in Pakistan. In my view, IMF is more than a bitter pill to restore country's economic health.