Former ministers slam ‘Daronomics’

Miftah, Hammad hold Dar responsible for country’s bad finances

LAHORE:

Two former finance ministers on Thursday bitterly criticised the policies pursued by Ishaq Dar, saying the incumbent finance minister was responsible for the woeful state of country’s economic affairs.

While speaking at a local TV channel, former finance minister Miftah Ismail said the country suffered a “huge loss” due to the finance minister’s reluctance to approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“Dar sahab had initially thought that he could either run the affairs without the IMF or that a different agreement could be reached by threatening the foreign lender,” he said.

The former finance minister said that all experts knew that Dar’s approach was bound to fail. “He tried but [his policies] caused immense damage to the country. Now, the result is in front of us,” he said.

Addressing a seminar at the IBA Karachi later in the day, Miftah also accused the former finance minister of running propaganda against him through different TV programmes.

Speaking about reports that the economy was on the verge of collapse, Miftah said delay in the revival of the IMF programme increased the default risk.
“It cannot be said that Pakistan will not default,” he said.

Opposing Dar’s policy to artificially control the rupee value, Miftah called it “madness” to control the rupee-dollar exchange rate through administrative measures.

Meanwhile, addressing a news conference Islamabad, PTI’s Hammad Azhar said whenever Dar took the charge, he tried to fix the exchange rate, in which he always failed.

“When we took over the government, we kept the market based exchange rate in order to meet the condition of the International Monetary Fund (IMF),” he said.

“Had we not maintained political stability, the dollar would have gone as high as Rs190 to a dollar.”

He remarked that if the “regime change operation” was not done on one person’s insistence, the dollar would not be so expensive today.

“In the last nine months, the dollar has gained 3.4 percent against the rupee,” the PTI leader said. “Today, the interbank market closed at Rs255.”

He pointed out that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is not opening letters of credit (LCs).

“Thanks to Ishaq Dar's policies, everything has become scarce today,” he said, highlighting that six months ago, the economy was growing at 6 percent.

“The independence of the State Bank was not maintained,” he remarked. “The disastrous policies of Miftah Ismail and Ishaq Dar worsened the conditions of the country.”