Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday that a delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would travel to Pakistan in two to three days to finalise the ninth review of Pakistan\u2019s $7bn Extended Fund Facility (EFF).
\nHe made the remarks while addressing the inaugural ceremony of Hazara Electric Supply Company (HESC) in Islamabad.
\nPakistan entered a $6 billion IMF programme in 2019, which was increased to $7bn last year. The programme\u2019s ninth review, which would release $1.18bn, is currently pending. It had earlier been put off for two months due to the PML-N-led government\u2019s unwillingness to accept certain conditions placed before it by the Fund, and the disagreements have yet to be resolved.
\nDuring his address, the premier said he had spoken with International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva last night (Thursday) regarding Pakistan\u2019s agreements with the international money lender.
\nHe highlighted that he assured Georgieva the current government wished to fulfil the terms of the agreement the previous government had \u201cbroken and shattered\u201d.
\nHe said that Pakistan would try its best to fulfil the terms of the IMF agreement but also highlighted the destruction brought by last year\u2019s catastrophic floods.
\nShehbaz said he told Georgieva that the \u201ceconomic situation is in front of you, I can\u2019t burden the common man any further [\u2026] She assured me that she understands my difficulty\u201d.
\nThe premier reiterated that he told the IMF official that Pakistan would try and complete the terms of the agreement.
\nThe premier further said that he asked Georgieva to dispatch a delegation to Pakistan in order to complete the ninth review of the IMF programme. \u201cShe told me that an IMF team will arrive in Pakistan in two to three days\u201d.
\nthat he had not anticipated the extent to which PTI Chairman Imran Khan had \u201cdestroyed everything\u201d, referring to the country\u2019s worsening economic situation.
\nAddressing the inaugural ceremony of Hazara Electric Supply Company (HESC) in Islamabad, Shehbaz said: \u201cWe paid a heavy price when we took over the government. We knew the economic situation was bad but I had not anticipated the extent to which that Imran Khan has completely destroyed everything.\u201d
\nHe lambasted Imran for \u201ctaking out the funeral\u201d of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and for making \u201cbaseless\u201d corruption allegations against Chinese companies.
\nHe also criticised his predecessor for sitting idle instead of buying gas when it was available in the international market at cheaper rates.
\n\u201cHe (Imran) had no interest in the Pakistani people. If he did, he would have set aside political vendettas, verbal abuses [\u2026] and would have initiated projects for the people.\u201d
\nHe further said that Imran did not initiate a single project during his tenure or lay down \u201ca single brick\u201d.
\nHe further termed Imran to be the \u201cbiggest hypocrite and most thankless person\u201d, referring to the PTI leader\u2019s statements against the country\u2019s top institutions.
\nThe prime minister said that it was Imran\u2019s \u201cmisfortune\u201d that he proved to be a failure, despite the fact that the Pakistan Army exhausted all its \u201cpowers and capabilities\u201d in an effort to ensure that the country moves forward and develops.
\nTalking about the HESC, the premier said that the demand of the people of Hazara for a better electricity supply system, owned and supervised by the people, had been fulfilled.
\nThe premier assured the attendees that the government would complete the remaining necessary arrangements for the company as soon as possible.
\nHe thanked Minister of Power Khurram Dastgir Khan and his team for their efforts in this regard.
\nPM Shehbaz also announced that he had directed the authorities concerned to complete Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) projects that were left incomplete despite the availability of funds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday that a delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would travel to Pakistan in two to three days…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4092,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}