• Aurangzeb announces 10-year Country Partnership Framework with World Bank to address population growth, stunting, climate change
• Opposition leader questions need for in-camera briefing on finance, energy; says IMF programme should be open to public
ISLAMABAD: Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, Omar Ayub Khan, on Monday accused the government of being non-transparent with details about a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff mission, that visited the country last month.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting of the NA Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue, which was partially held in-camera, the opposition leader — who hails from the PTI — said there was nothing secret about the IMF programme and journalists had reported everything, but the government merely wanted to avoid embarrassment over questions from parliamentarians.
Mr Khan said he had served as minister of state for finance and revenue and also the federal minister for power, but he had never seen in-camera sessions on the finance and energy sector, adding that he was not satisfied with the briefing given by the government team. The IMF programme is always open to public, he said, adding that parliamentary sessions are also meant to be open to the media.
He said members of the panel asked questions about the commitments made with the IMF to ensure reducing the government footprint and declaration of assets and income of civil servants.
He said the members also questioned tax targets from agriculture sector, almost three times higher in the first go, which was next to impossible. He claimed the government did not take the panel into confidence over the IMF staff mission’s recent visit, either.
After an initial presentation on structural benchmarks, indicative targets and qualitative performance indicators required under the IMF programme, committee chairman Naveed Qamar asked journalists to leave the meeting for an in-camera question-answer session amid protest by Omar Ayub Khan.
In-camera session
Earlier, during the portion of the NA committee meeting that was open to journalists, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb announced that Pakistan was entering into a 10-year Country Partnership Framework with the World Bank to address “existential challenges” like population growth, child stunting and climate change.
Mr Aurangzeb, who has long termed these three areas as ‘existential issues’ facing the country, said Pakistan would have to push through the long delayed structural reforms and there was no room for complacency.
The only option, he said, was to stay the course with reforms committed with the IMF for correcting the taxation system, energy and state-owned entities and public finances.
Testifying before the NA Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue, presided by Syed Naveed Qamar, the finance minister said the government was committed to these reforms for sustainable development, but warned that without controlling the growing population, economic reforms were meaningless as this was “one of the biggest challenges undermining Pakistan’s long-term economic stability”.
Circular debt
In his remarks after the meeting, Mr Ayub termed the government’s target of privatisation of two distribution companies ‘unrealistic’, given the fact that it had ‘miserably’ failed in a straightforward privatisation transaction of PIA, whose assets, routes, financials and other factors were known to everybody.
Besides, he added, the investment climate for power sector was also not favourable. He claimed that the finance minister had smiled at his comments on the power sector and investment climate, and agreed they were true.
Mr Khan said the government had made commitments for stopping the flow of circular debt which had in recent months grown at the rate of Rs45-55 billion per month while fixed capacity payments were increasing because of fall in electricity consumption.
He said four LNG plants set up on the ‘take or pay’ contract for LNG procurement from Qatar entailed outflow of $750-850 million on a monthly basis. He alleged that the government was trying to delay LNG cargos or terminate their contracts while the LNG power plants must run.
Given the sovereign contracts, additional LNG inflows were adding pipeline pressures and increasing gas sector circular debt. He said Ogra was asking for increasing gas rates while the government would be forced to pump LNG to the domestic sector to meet gas shortfall at lower rates.
Internet woes
Omar Ayub said the government also talked about increase in IT exports but was told by the members that even Monday’s newspapers and television channels were full of complaints against “internet policing”, and digital control where every byte and megabyte was being checked.
He claimed the FBR chief was warned that PTA and Nadra were run by officers in uniform and soon he could also lose job to another security officer.
He alleged that the government had “zero plan for tax”. He said the committee was told by the FBR that its target for revenue from cigarettes was impacted by smuggling.
Mr Khan said the government boasted about stock market progress but could not justify this “pump and dump show” given the fact that initial public offerings since last year were unnoticeable.
“Ask anybody in the street about economy and you will know the truth. The engine is out of order but the vehicle is being manually pushed.” he said.
Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2024
