Former finance minister Miftah Ismail on Thursday once again took a jibe at Ishaq Dar, saying if the PDM government was to fire him, they should have replaced him with an “economist” who was “competent”.
While giving an interview to a private news channel, the leader of Pakistan Muslim League (N) said that there are capable people like Ahsan Iqbal in the party. He added that he would not discuss Dar’s qualifications but his approach in dealing with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was adversarial.
He said that if Pakistan had secured a bailout deal from the IMF in October 2022 with the terms of the international lender, the economic situation would not have deteriorated to such an extent.
Miftah said Dar’s “eye-to-eye” philosophy of dealing with global lenders had backfired. As a result of this approach, the country’s foreign exchange reserves fell to $2.9 billion and the government still had to increase the price of petrol by Rs 35, he said.
Miftah said that because of Dar’s selfish policies, people’s factories were closed.
“What did the country gain by selling cheap petrol, punishing exporters and increasing the risk of default?” The Muslim League-N leader asked.
IMF deal is yet to be sealed
On Thursday, Pakistan and the IMF failed to reach a staff-level agreement after 10 days of “tough” talks aimed at unlocking much-needed funds for the cash-strapped country.
The development came as talks, which took place from January 31 to February 9 with the international lender – which was visiting Pakistan at the request of the government – and local officials concluded in Islamabad.
Finance Minister Dar was supposed to hold a press conference to revive the programme, but no official announcement was made by the Finance Minister.
In a statement issued late on Thursday night, Finance Secretary Hameed Shaikh announced, without giving further details, that “agreement has been reached with the IMF on advance measures”.
