KARACHI: Former fina­nce minister and PTI Sena­tor Shaukat Tarin asked the government on Saturday to immediately seek fiscal space of Rs2 trillion to Rs2.5tr from the Internat­ional Monetary Fund (IMF) to provide flood victims with relief in the short term.

Speaking at a press conference, Mr Tarin said the government should also approach Russia for oil supplies that’re available at a discount of “30-40 per cent”.

“You can always swap Russian oil in the international market,” he said while responding to a question about the compatibility of Russian oil with the refineries operating in Pakistan.

“They should tell the United States that people need relief after the floods. They should announce targeted subsidies,” he said.

Mr Tarin criticised the powers that be for “leaking” the audio of a controversial phone conversation hours before the IMF board meeting. He alleged that people responsible for the leak wanted to jeopardise the IMF deal, which led to the disbursement of a $1.17bn loan tranche and paved the way for additional dollar inflows from other bilateral and multilateral sources.

“Who leaked the tapes? We did not. We didn’t make the tapes, so how would we leak them?” he asked.

On Monday, two audio clips surfaced on social media in which a man, said to be Mr Tarin, can be heard directing the finance ministers of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab to tell the federal government and IMF that they wouldn’t be able to commit to a provincial budget surplus in view of the devastation caused by the floods.

“We decided this was not the time to release that letter… So were we jeopardising the programme or you? You could’ve done it on Tuesday… Why did you do it just before the meeting?”

Expressing disappointment at the accusations of being a traitor, Mr Tarin said it was time all the political parties, including the PTI, moved past it. “In a democracy, you have the freedom to voice both agreement and dissent.

“We have a disaster in front of us and it calls for us to unite and fight it together,” he said.

“I am seeing that our common folk will see more burden in the upcoming days because they’ll increase taxes and it’ll have a ripple effect […] and the reason is that they have accepted IMF’s special conditionalities,” he pointed out, citing increasing inflation and appreciating dollar.

Senator Tarin lamented the premature ouster of PTI from power in April as it was set to grow tax revenue to Rs8tr. “They’ll take the collection to barely Rs7.5tr after imposing so many taxes. We would’ve used the additional Rs500 billion to Rs1tr on relief efforts,” he added.

He said the ideal way forward is replacing the incumbent government with an interim setup that enjoys across-the-board political support. “Whether by-elections can be held amid the floods is a moot point,” he said, adding that the government should accept Imran Khan’s offer to raise and distribute funds for flood-affected people.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2022