PTI negotiated highly flawed programme with IMF, claims Dar

ISLAMABAD: Former finance minister Ishaq Dar has said that the PTI-led government negotiated a highly flawed programme with the IMF by accepting an unprecedented devaluation of rupee against dollar and hiking of interest rate, resulting in massive inflationary pressures in Pakistan.

It was the biggest mistake committed by the PTI led regime that they devalued the currency and hiked interest rates, he added. He said that he did not see the possibility of revival of the IMF program. He claimed Pakistan had never got support from the IMF during their tenure as it was a standalone economic performance that was acknowledged by everyone at that time.

He proposed that heavy penalty and imprisonment should be imposed on those who, according to him, had wrongly inserted into the JIT report on alleged dictation that he did not file his due returns for the last 20 years, from 1981 to 2001 despite being elected as a parliamentarian and former minister. He said that he had never delayed filing of his returns even for 20 minutes, so all those who told lies should be put behind the bars. He said if the finance minister had not filed his returns, he should be hanged. However, such a fraudulent process has to be buried.

In a chat with this scribe on Monday, Ishaq Dar claimed that when he had negotiated the IMF program in 2013, he had told the Fund clearly that it was none of their business to tell us about the exact level of the exchange rate. However, he said the PTI-led regime accepted an unprecedented devaluation of rupee against the dollar that had nosedived to Rs168 against a dollar. Now the rupee had gained strength but was again losing its ground. Secondly, he said that he had never accepted the IMF demands on the interest rate as he agreed in principle that it should be in positive mode, if inflation stood at 4 percent, the interest rate should be hovering around in the range of 5 to 5.25 percent.