KARACHI – President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President All Karachi Industrial Alliance (AKIA), Senior Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former provincial minister, Mian Zahid Hussain on Friday said IMF harsh conditions should not be allowed to become a threat to the economy.
IMF program has reduced current account deficit and strengthened forex reserves to some extent but it has compromised growth rate, production, businesses, and employment while runaway inflation has affected almost everyone, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that reports regarding insistence by IMF to increase taxes are disturbing. If increasing taxes has become necessary, the government should target sectors which are not paying taxes since the last seventy years
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that the growth rate has been reduced by over fifty percent to get six billion dollars from the lender resulting in massive bankruptcies and massive unemployment.
The former minister noted that after the IMF deal, rupee saw record erosion in its value but it hasn’t helped to improve the exports as expected while the public debt rose to unsustainable levels.
Moreover, the interest rates is not allowing business to run which must be noticed, he demanded. He said that the reason behind IMF’s strict stance is the failure of the successive governments to reform power sector and tax administration and sell companies inflicting heavy losses due to political considerations.
Now these three sectors have become a major problem for the country wasting precious resources, he said, adding that all the losses of the power sector are being diverted to masses which has destabilised household budgets and added to woes of the industrial sector.
He said that the IMF conditions must be revisited and relaxed otherwise, the government will find it increasingly difficult to abide by the agreement putting IMF’s targets at stake.
