ISLAMABAD, Aug 29: The People’s Rights Movement (PRM) has called on country’s financial managers to discontinue the agreements with International Financial Institutions (IFIs).
Speaking at a press conference, PRM convenor Asim Sajjad said under the ongoing policies, the working class would be further marginalized as international donor agencies were only interested in extracting profits and not in the general public’s welfare.
On the occasion of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) team’s visit to Pakistan to approve the latest tranche under $1.4 billion Poverty Reduction Growth Facility (PRGF), the PRM and its constituent people’s movements reject all neo-liberal anti-people policies that had been imposed on the country by the present government, its predecessor military government and the IFIs, he said.
The increases in indirect taxation, reductions in support prices and subsidies, moves towards privatization of profitable state-owned enterprises and liberalization in trade and finance, supported by the IFIs, have been the primary causes of the rapidly increasing poverty in the country.
Unemployment and increasing prices, that have been on the rise for quite some time, affect the working class more than the corporate interests or any other element of the ruling elite.
Meanwhile, non-productive expenditures, such as war spending and debt-servicing, consume a massive proportion of the total expenditures, thus making it impossible to channel the much- needed public money towards social sectors and basic employment generation, he said.
Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz had suggested many times that the government would no longer seek loans from the IMF after the present Poverty Reduction Growth Facility (PRGF) agreement was completed.
However, enhanced funding commitments from the IMF’s sister institutions, the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB), are being sought with vigour.
In recent weeks, the World Bank has agreed to increase annual funding from $600 million to $1 billion while the ADB has also agreed to increase its three-year funding package from approximately $2.4 billion to $2.7 billion.
The World Bank and ADB are clearly committed to a coordinated funding agenda with the IMF and will continue to demand that adjustment policies strengthen in the country, he added.
Therefore, it matters little which IFI disburses loans to Pakistan as all such institutions operate on the same basic geo- political principles.
Meanwhile, the much-promoted Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) is scheduled to be completed within the month of September, he said.
The most recent draft of the PRSP has only confirmed that adjustment policies continue to reign supreme, and that the kind of radical policy shifts required in the country to address people’s needs are lacking in the document, Mr Asim said.
The claims in the PRSP that state land is being allotted to the landless and that kutchi abadi dwellers are being given permanent shelter are completely nonexistent.
He said the IFIs continued to exert influence over what should be sovereign political processes within the country.
Till now, all of the talk of good governance has not included a single mention of the fact that Pakistan’s biggest governance problem is the fact that the army continues to dictate the affairs of the state.
The PRM rejects the PRSP process and demands an immediate impartial appraisal of adjustment policies that have been imposed on the country since the late 1970s.