ISLAMABAD: While the government has been celebrating the International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) has warned people that they will have to pay the price in the form of further inflation.

The PTI spokesman, in a statement, has said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his cabinet were rejoicing over the IMF agreement as if the financial body was going to give a $3 billion fund in the form of charity.

In reaction to the IMF programme on Monday, he said that the IMF programme was undoubtedly a positive development; however, the “inept” federal government did not have any economic reform roadmap as its only priority was to collect money from the fund and other countries but did not know what needed to be done afterward.

“It seems that the government’s plan B was simply to improve the economy through foreign investment,” he added.

Criticises govt’s lack of economic reform roadmap; price hikes in electricity, gas and diesel to burden people

The PTI spokesman said that the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) saw the solution to the country’s all economic problems only in striking an IMF deal, adding that the same people used to call the agreement with the IMF anti-national during the PTI government.

He alleged that the nation had been bearing the burden of PDM’s “incompetence” for the last one year to secure the IMF deal.

The IMF Executive Board would approve the staff-level agreement in its meeting on July 12. However, the PTI spokesperson stated that the international organisation Moody’s has expressed uncertainty about obtaining the $3bn funding from the IMF.

He said that according to Moody’s, Pakistan needed a long-term external funding plan to meet the requirements of the next few years, adding that the PDM did not handle the matters well during the last 14 months and now the people would pay the price in the form of inflation.

He stated that under the terms of the programme, Pakistan had already increa­sed electricity and gas rates, and it would increase further in the coming days.

The PTI spokesperson continued by stating that despite the availability of cheap oil from Russia, the government chose to raise the price of diesel by Rs7.5 per litre, adding that Finance Minister Ishaq Dar himself said that the prices of petroleum products would be further increased due to the petroleum levy.

He said that with the expected surge in power prices by Rs4 to Rs5, the shortfall was also increasing continuously.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2023