April 22, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 15, 1429

ISLAMABAD, April 21: The People’s Rights Movement (PRM) has urged the government to break with the neo-liberal dictates of the international financial institutions (IFIs).

It also warned that if the policies of the Shaukat Aziz-led team of economic managers were not abandoned, the working people of Pakistan would soon turn against the new regime.

Reacting to the increase in petrol and diesel prices, Zahoor Khan of PRM said that until and unless serious attempts are made to tax the rich and do away with white elephants such as the unaccountable defence budget, the government will continue to tax the poor so as to meet its revenue targets.

Zahoor Khan said that it is shocking that the World Bank has acknowledged in its most recent report that the performance of the Shaukat Aziz-regime was dismal, characterised by bad governance and an increase in poverty. He said that this admission of the World Bank is extremely hypocritical because it was the IFIs that fully supported the ‘economic reform’ programme of the previous regime and lauded it at every step along the way.

He said that the IFIs have proven that they make decisions on the basis of geo-political considerations rather than the needs of the country in question and therefore the new coalition should clearly assert its sovereignty in the face of pressures by the IFIs to adopt radical neo-liberal policies.

Zahoor Khan said that Pakistan’s economy now stood on the brink of collapse and this was a function of the reckless financial liberalization that had been championed by the IFIs and the previous regime.

He said that it is high time that the government of Pakistan designed economic policies not to meet the interests of local and international investors but the needs of the Pakistani people.

He said that the general public is willing to give the new government a chance even though there are serious power and atta crises but that if it does not prove soon that it is willing to take a stand against dominant groups within Pakistan and international financiers, the goodwill that the people harbour towards the regime will fade rapidly.