Miftah Ismail has said that the agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been finalized and will be announced soon. The Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP), an important element of agreement with IMF, is almost complete and under review by various ministries. This MEFP will be sent to IMF shortly, said the minister.
Upon questioning from the media, the minister said that he cannot reveal more than that.
The IMF has also asked to make the assets of all grade 17 to grade 22 officials public and the assets of public office holders.
Talking to a private news channel, he also said, “the MEFP is being reviewed by various ministries, which are to complete the review within a couple of days. After the reviews have been completed, the MEFP will be sent to the IMF.”
Earlier, Petroleum Minister Musadik Malik had revealed that an agreement with IMF is due within a week as most of the modalities have been finalized and almost all the conditions have been met.
During Eid day, four MOUs with the provincial government have been signed with the Federal Government on the federal divisible pool and NFC award. After these MOUs, a ratio of primary balance and overall fiscal deficit will be maintained in which fiscal surplus will flow from provinces to the federal government.
After the budget announcement, a complete review of budget policy and data was done by the IMF and the Ministry of Finance. In this review, all the budget targets and the budget size were also amended. FBR target was revised upwards, and new taxes were imposed.
According to sources, the programme is likely to be extended till July 2023, and the program size has increased from $1 billion to $7 billion. Initially, the IMF will release SDR894 million, which is equal to $1.2 billion.
The sources also revealed that Pakistan had met all the criteria required by IMF already. However, the delay was caused by several issues, which included the revenue plan, the power tariff adjustments, the Independent Power Producers (IPPs), whose tariff has not been renegotiated, the fiscal surplus that the provinces are expected to run, and the quarterly fiscal targets.
