IMF Rejects Pakistan’s Budget Targets, Demands Additional Reforms

Official sources indicate that the IMF has expressed concerns about the government’s targets, including some established through the public sector development program.
The IMF has raised a major concern about how large development projects were carried out ahead, and now their total exceeds Rs. 10,000 billion. This figure represents the cost of developing schemes that have been approved but remain incomplete.
Officials have said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif wants the Ministry of Planning to prepare detailed reports about 500 development projects that are ongoing. Most of these projects deal with infrastructure development.
Creating the budget for development in the upcoming fiscal year is a problem the government is having. According to the sources, at this point, coordination between the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Planning has not yet been established since there is no budget target.
The meeting of the Annual Planning Coordination Committee, planned for today to decide PSDP targets, has been put off. A new date for the committee’s meeting will be announced in due course. Looking back on this year’s development projects, one should suggest a strategy for the upcoming fiscal year as well.