50 Politicians & other individuals of interest in the establishment got a write off valued at 1 billion dollars in 2008 alone IMF should demand recovery:
By: Professor Dr. Gholam Mujtaba, MS, MD, Ed.D., FRSPH
Chairman Pakistan Policy Institute USA
The Library of Congress put the write-off figures of 50 Pakistanis (alleged looters) under the cover of establishment at $861,000,000.00, or close to a billion dollars in 2008 alone in its publication (https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2008-04-02/pakistan-loans-to-politicians-waived/
Billions and billions of dollars in loans were written off using political might by those ruling Islamabad (https://tribune.com.pk/story/1147449/three-years-pml-n-waives-off-rs280b-loans
A QUIGMIRE FOR IMF & WORLD BANK
1. How could these looters without legislation get away with a single strike of a pen, and why would the people of Pakistan pay the brunt in high taxes for recovery of IMF or WB loans extended to those who are the product of fake electoral results brought through “computer-app programs”?
2. Why and how such nonrepresentative governments be facilitated by the IMF or WB while the entire global media shouts over rigged polls?
3. Why were blind eyes put on alleged money laundering and CCP’s ‘debt-trap’ in accelerating Pakistan to the brink of economic collapse?
4. What is the role of the board of directors in protecting an imminent default, while managing damage control in global economic equilibrium in the face of parallels drawn with Zambia?
CCP’s (Chinese Communist Party) DEBT-TRAP
Government lenders such as the U.S., Japan and France would work out deals to forgive some debt, with each lender disclosing clearly what they were owed and on what terms so no one would feel cheated. That’s transparency.
PARALLELS BETWEEN PAKISTAN & ZAMBIA VIS A VIS CHINESE DEBT-TRAP
Missing Transparency
A case study of how China has played out is in Zambia. Over the past two decades Zambia borrowed billions of dollars from China who didn’t play by the rules. It refused at first to even join in multinational talks, negotiating separately with Zambia and insisting on confidentiality that barred the country from telling non-Chinese lenders the terms of the loans and whether China had devised a way of muscling to the front of the repayment line. The same non-disclosure policy exists with Pakistan which lenders like IMF and WB have repeatedly demanded, but to no avail.
Amid this confusion in 2020, a group of non-Chinese lenders refused desperate pleas from Zambia to suspend interest payments, even for a few months. That refusal added to the drain on Zambia’s foreign cash reserves, the stash of mostly U.S. dollars that it used to pay interest on loans and to buy major commodities like oil. By November 2020, with little reserves left, Zambia stopped paying the interest and defaulted, locking it out of future borrowing and setting off a vicious cycle of spending cuts and deepening poverty.
Inflation in Zambia has since soared 50%, unemployment has hit a 17-year high and the nation’s currency, the kwacha, has lost 30% of its value in just seven months. A United Nations estimate of Zambians not getting enough food has nearly tripled so far this year, to 3.5 million.
A PLEA FOR CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATION
To save Pakistan from an imminent financial crash, the United States Congress may legislate law to freeze the assets of all those who brought dirty money from their home countries by ruining the world economic equilibrium.
Sources of income and records of justifiable tax returns on earnings in home countries must be made mandatory to establish financial transparency.
The Pakistani American di
aspora should play a key role to fix the situation of corrupt practices, lack of transparency and thedummy-run rigged polls obliterating the promotion of democracy in Pakistan.