IMF demands ‘new version’ of East India Company: Malik

ISLAMABAD: Former Interior minister and Chairman Institute of Research and Reforms (IRR) Senator Abdul Rehman Malik has termed IMF demands a new version of the East India Company.

“If the parliament passes the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Demands Act, Pakistan will partially lose the power to decide its fiscal policies,” he said in a statement while reacting to the Supplementary Finance Bill which was presented in the National Assembly. He said every Pakistani is bound to suffer because of the mini IMF budget. Therefore, the parliament, opposition and government should come up with a solution to get rid of the IMF with a collective doable debt retirement programme.

He said the SBP autonomy bill even prohibits criticizing or questioning the governor, State Bank of Pakistan, for his actions, which means an utter violation of the freedom of speech since as per the proposed amendments, immunity has been granted to the sitting SBP management. He said in the proposed amendments, SBP objectives have been specified for price maintenance and financial stability while the government has justified this autonomy as a way to maintain prices. There has been no mention of inflation targets or price stability.

He said the government will not be able to borrow from the SBP under any circumstances, which will badly affect the financial needs of the government and the national exchequer and this will create hardships for the government, pushing the country to bankruptcy. “There will be no check or deterrence on wrongdoings or criminal mismanagement or any criminal negligence by SBP employees,” he added.

He said the proposed amendments have posed a serious threat to the sovereignty of Pakistan as the independent State Bank will be omitted from the state domain and the state will be under obligation to become subordinate to the State Bank. “An independent SBP will be dictating all our institutional decisions and state secrets and operations in the national interest will be directly subject to security risk,” he said.