ISLAMABAD, Nov 7: The International Financial Institutions (IFIs) are directly interfering in the political independence of the country by dictating their terms for the future civilian government’s economic policies.

This was said by Asim Sajjad of the People’s Rights Movement (PRM) at a press conference.

Mr Sajjad of the PRM briefed reporters about the questionable parts of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP); a country document that outlined the policy regime to be adopted by the respective government in foreseeable future to be declared eligible for the financial assistance from international donors.

He said the present military regime,without involving stakeholders such as local businessmen, farmers, workers’ unions and labour organizations in the negotiation process with the IFIs, had accepted conditionalities put up by the IMF and its sister organizations.

“As the military government is not accountable to anyone of the state’s institutions, hence, accepting whatsoever fits in to fulfil its vested interests,” he added.

He said except Nawaz Sharif’s government, all such agreements were either signed by the military or caretaker governments as the parliament, being accountable to the general public, could not make agreements whereby people were burdened with unnecessary foreign loans.

He further added that in the PRSP it was categorically mentioned that the government would facilitate landless people both in the urban and rural areas and would allot them land.

Whereas, the present government in sheer violation of human rights has embarked upon forced evictions in the urban areas, forcing landless tenants to sign a new agreement whereby the government can get the land evicted any time.

Being critical of the government’s rhetoric about its economic achievements, Mr Sajjad said unemployment, inflation and poverty were on the rise and the government was busy in highlighting its foreign exchange reserves, which he claimed, did not do any good to the common man.

It may be added here that the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) was the concessional lending arm of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and in late 2001, the IMF approved a three-year PRGF agreement with the Pakistani government worth almost $1.4 billion.

Khadim Hussain, another member of the People’s Rights Movement, said Pakistan’s interim-PRSP (I-PRSP) was completed in November 2001 and despite the fact that the full PRSP was yet to be completed, an IMF mission was once again here in Pakistan to conduct the fourth review under the above-mentioned agreement, a precursor to further disbursement.

He said under the agreement, the government had already received about $456 million in IMF loans over the past 12 months.

Pakistan’s I-PRSP provided a glimpse into the development paradigm that the IMF and its sister institutions such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) were propagating, he said.

There was no evidence that the I-PRSP was prepared with any substantive input from the people of Pakistan. Meanwhile, the military government happily went along with the conditionalities which were being imposed on the country.