CM aide says Shehbaz govt entered third IMF programme

PESHAWAR: Advisor to Chief Minister on Finance Muzzammil Aslam said on Sunday the Shehbaz Sharif government had entered the IMF programme three times in two years.

In a statement, he questioned the claim of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif that this would be the last IMF programme.He said that IMF new projections were disappointing as it had forecast to reduce the GDP to 3.2 percent from 3.5 percent while average inflation at 9.5 percent but by end of June inflation will be at 10.5 percent.

He said the current account had gone to 0.9 percent from 1.2 percent due to IMF package. He said that The forex reserves had downgraded to 12.8 billion dollar from earlier 13.3 billion dollars.

Muzzammil Aslam said the general government debt may increase from 69.2 percent to 71.4 percent of GDP while the publicand publicly guaranteed debt was projected to rise from 73 percent to 75.1 percent of the total size of economy.

He said that Pakistan has been in the IMF programme since 1959 and had received 24 IMF programmes so far while only one of these 24 programs was taken by the Imran Khan government.Muzzammil Aslam said that out of these 24 programmes, seven have been taken by military governments while the remaining 17 had been taken by political governments.