Proposed SBP legislation to prove dangerous for economy: Malik

ISLAMABAD: Former interior minister and chairman Institute of Research and Reforms Abdul Rehman Malik said the proposed State Bank of Pakistan legislation will prove dangerous for country’s economy.

“Pakistan will fall in a highly economic danger zone resultantly we all in the country will suffer heavily and it was hoped that the government will not bulldoze SBP Act 2021 through Parliament,” he said in a statement Saturday.

Malik said the State Bank of any country is the main regulator of overall financial system and banking of that country that monitors smooth functioning of the banks as per given governmental national policy. “But, unfortunately, our State Bank of Pakistan – the central bank of the country, the ownership of the people of Pakistan will no longer be under the government after this legislation,” he added.

He said FATF’s continuous interference has already played havoc with Pakistan’s economy and now the new forced so-called independence of SBP under the direction of International Monetary Fund (IMF) is aimed to further destroy it. He said the governor State Bank of Pakistan will be no longer answerable to any agency and even to the Parliament. He said the proposed legislation was planned since one year and he was hinting by giving vocal statements about this looming economic disaster and it will not be wrong to say that State Bank Act amendments will prove a tsunami for Pakistan’s economy and bombshell for businessmen and common man. He said it is now merely a public confessional statement for declaration of SBP independence and his statement is on record that State Bank of Pakistan was restricting the telegraphic transfers of exports by business community on various lame pretexts.