The government will renegotiate the conditions of the hiking of the powertariff and the raising of tax revenues with the International Monetary Fund(IMF).

This was stated by the new Minister for Finance, Shaukat Tarin, during hisfirst address at a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee onFinance at the Parliament House. The meeting was chaired by Faiz AhmedKamoka.

Minister Tarin said that the IMF has imposed very harsh conditions underits $6 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) program, and that the economicconsolidation that has been going on since 2019 has caused difficulties onthe economic front. He added that he has been trying to convince the IMF tobe lenient to Pakistan in consideration of the third wave of the pandemic.——————————

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“Now we will have to stand up to talk to the IMF as their demands forhiking electricity that has resulted in hiking inflationary pressures andcausing corruption,” he said.

Minister Tarin was also of the opinion that increasing the tariffs will notbe the correct way to achieve a reduction in the circular debt. He remarkedthat the government would privatize the state-owned enterprises that cannotbe run efficiently in the public sector as an alternative approach.

The allocation for the development projects through the Public SectorDevelopment Program (PSDP) is another solution to Pakistan’s economic woes,according to him.