Miftah rebuts talk of financial emergency

The government did not have any plans to impose a financial emergency in the country or freezing the foreign currency accounts or the Roshan Digital Accounts (RDA), Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said on Monday.

Ismail took to the microblogging website of Twitter to quash rumours about financial emergency being spread on “social media by bigoted” elements. He stressed that after the increase in the petroleum products price, the country was emerging out of financial crisis.

“The Prime Minister will at some point announce austerity measures to save government expenditures. But there is not going to be any declaration of financial emergency. Nor is there any financial emergency,” the minister wrote in his tweet.

“There is absolutely no plan to freeze foreign currency accounts or Roshan Digital Accounts or take over people’s private lockers. We have never even contemplated these steps. Nor will we ever do it,” he further wrote in another tweet.

“Speculation on social media about this is wrong and coming from biased quarters,” Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said in one of his tweets. “After two increases in petrol prices, we are out of the financial crisis,” he added.

There has been talk on social media that the government might go for declaring financial emergency in the country to steer the country out of the current economic morass. The rumours have also impacted markets on Monday.

Read Adding fuel to fire: Netizens outrage over yet another petrol price hike

As the week opened, the rupee slumped 1.30% or Rs2.59 to Rs200.51 against the US dollar in the inter-bank market, marking a significant drop for a single day. "The drop is seen following the prices of petroleum products hovering high,” an analyst told The Express Tribune.

Earlier this month, Ismail announced Rs30 per litre in the price of petrol to pave way for the revival of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme. It was the second increase in the price of petroleum products over the past fortnight.

According to Mustafa Mustansir, the head of research at the Taurus Securities, the government was expected to make financial adjustments worth Rs2 trillion in the upcoming budget through cutting expenditures and increasing tax revenues.

Mustansir added that budget uncertainties had mounted pressure on the rupee. "IMF would consider resuming its loan programme after seeing whether Pakistan has implemented prerequisite commitments in the budget," he added.

Prior to the finance minister's clarification, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) also issued a statement, rebutting the rumours about imposition of restrictions on foreign currency accounts, Roshan Digital Accounts, and safety deposit lockers.

The central bank assured all account holders in Pakistan that their accounts and lockers were completely safe and that there was no proposal under consideration to put any restriction on them.