Govt, IMF negotiations raising serious questions, says Rabbani

ISLAMABAD: Former chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani on Thursday said that negotiations between the government and International Monetary Fund for the bailout package were raising serious questions on its transparency.

“The transparency of the negotiations between the IMF and the federal government after the installation of an IMF team as the Adviser Finance and Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan is raising serious questions on its transparency,” he said in a statement issued here.

He noted, “it appears that the IMF to IMF negotiations carried out for the bailout package are loaded against the State of Pakistan and raise serious questions as to the political price that the state will have to pay in terms of its national security and in the context of the regional developments taking place”.

Rabbani pointed out that the resignation of the Chairman of the Board of Investment for the reasons that the IMF programme had precedent over other foreign investments and the talk that the Secretary Finance did not attend the last three meetings with the IMF and was now about to be shown the door, raises serious questions of facts on which the government needed to take Parliament into confidence.

The major fact that the details of the agreement were being hidden from the Parliament and people of Pakistan, he alleged, raised serious and genuine questions about the compromises made and the financial sovereignty bartered to the IMF.