IMF's 'do more'

A 'do more' list with a call to 'do it within the timeframe' has been handed over to the government by IMF. The global lender seems to believe that it's time to walk the talk, and let stringent reforms be ushered in the body politic of an economy that has long been surviving on borrowed money, and wherein ad hocism is the way to go. The continuation of the $7 billion bailout package extended under the Extended Fund Facility is now subject to a total of 75 conditionalities, including 11 new ones which have to be fulfilled to reflect in the upcoming federal budget. Most of the conditionalities pertain to course-correction in our wayward approach of dealing with things, as the intention now is to streamline the affairs in the spheres of decision-making, governance and private sector development.

The salient features regarding the new conditionalities are startling as they will surely come as a tab on our sovereignty of economic muscles. As agreed by the finance minister in Washington, the beleaguered dispensation would enact amendments to the SEZ Act and STZA to phase out existing fiscal incentives; withdraw the privilege in granting tax incentives; prohibit EPZs from selling their goods in the domestic market to avoid evasion of taxes; grant 6,000 acres of land in Karachi on lease to develop SEZs; bar courts from taking cognisance of commercial legal disputes related to these zones; and ease restrictions on forex regulations. One of the most troubling demands, likewise, is to ensure that the government will not go back on its commitment to raise electricity and gas prices, to the detriment of production units that are struggling to make ends meet. A piece of consolation, however, is the recognition to increase the BISP payout from Rs14,500 to Rs19,500, from January 2027.

IMF's micro-monitoring of our economy is now documented, and the only way forward for us is to ensure that our bookkeeping is ordained, pilferages are plugged and discretions that go out to promote corruption are checked through institutional management. Most of these reforms should have been part of our economy, only if we had not looked the other way.