EACH time, Pakistan has to go to the IMF for a new Stand-by Arrangement or even at periodic reviews of perennial ‘stood-us-up’ programmes for the release of the next tranche, it is lectured on its failure to adhere to most of the programme’s conditions, ie, earn more than it spends, do away with untargeted and across-the-board subsidies, divest loss-making SOEs, ensure the State Bank’s independence and not treat the bank as a subsidiary of the finance ministry, etc. The newly elected government faces the unenvious prospect of being at the receiving end of this lecture again.

The government should, however, take heart and cite the Communist Party of Pakistan’s (CPP) most recent declaration, and that too by a personage no less than its secretary general who, while presiding at a meeting in Hyderabad, certified that the government is doing nothing but ‘following the Fund’s dictates’.

The Fund should not take the CPP’s endorsement lightly, as it does not come from some political party whose only claim to fame is contesting elections and forming a government here and leading an opposition there. The claim, nay indictment, comes from an entity that cannot be accused of even running a union council, sealing its reputation of........

© Dawn