Pakistan Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.
Islamabad: Even after the country is facing a shortage of essential food items to feed its people amid a crumbling economy, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Thursday asserted there would be “no compromise” on the country’s nuclear and missile programmes.
Responding to questions raised by PPP Senator Raza Rabbani during a Senate session, Dar said “Let me assure you that […] nobody is going to compromise anything on the nuclear or the missile program of Pakistan — no way.”
Senator Rabbani had raised some questions on the reasons behind the delay in the agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which would offer a critical lifeline to tame a balance-of-payments crisis, Down reported.
The PPP leader lamented that the Senate had “neither before nor today been taken into confidence on what are the conditionalities of the IMF”.
The PML-N leader asserted that the program “should have been over by 2022. The law amendments were passed by “this very parliament, after which the monetary policy has become too independent, in my opinion, he said.
The incumbent government did not enter into the ongoing agreement with the IMF and noted that it was the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led administration that had entered into the programme in 2019, Dar was quoted by Geo news as saying.
“This programme should have been completed in 2022,” he said, castigating the PTI regime for succumbing to IMF demands including the autonomy of the State Bank of Pakistan.
He said that previously, there were reviews that were completed, but now, it seems that every review has become a “new programme, which is very uncustomary with the IMF”.
On March 9, Dar had blamed the delay on the previous government, whose “failure to meet commitments” created a trust deficit that had continued to bite.
However, he had once again assured the nation that the country was “very close” to signing the agreement, which would release $1.1 billion that is part of a $6.5bn bailout package the IMF approved in 2019.
The government on Wednesday hiked the prices again of all petroleum products by up to Rs 13 per litre for the next fortnight. This was the third hike ever since the talks with IMF resumed. With this latest hike, diesel prices made a new record, reaching Rs 293 per litre.
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