Crisis: ‘IMF loans cannot help end corruption’

JI head says common man could barely afford the high electricity tariff.

LAHORE: The government should not raise the electricity tariff or privatise large institutions under pressure from the International Monetary Fund, Jamaat-i-Islami Ameer Syed Munawar Hasan said on Saturday. He was addressing several delegations at Mansoora. Hasan said the IMF was bent on running Pakistan’s economy to the ground. “Our rulers should act wisely to realise that,” he said. The common man could barely afford the high electricity tariff, said Hasan. A further raise, he said, would financially cripple the masses and adversely affect the country’s industry, agriculture and trade. He said unchecked corruption was the biggest problem the country faced. “One hears stories of public officials looting from the national exchequer daily and yet there is no accountability,” he said. Foreign loans cannot help change that, he said. Even though several influential people accused of stealing power and gas had been named in the media, the government had not taken any action against them. “That is because the corrupt have always found supporters in the government,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2013.