KARACHI     -    Former finance minis­ter and PML-N leader Miftah Ismail claimed on Wednesday that In­ternational Monetary Fund (IMF) was not interested in releasing money to Pakistan as the Washington-based lender had no trust in Islamabad government. 

Speaking during a session titled ‘Pakistan in the Midst of Crisis’ organised by a private university in Karachi, Miftah said when he was heading the Minis­try of Finance he spoke to the IMF officials and assured them that Paki­stan would not make false statements or violate the agreement; however, when Ishar Dar was sworn in ‘he sabotaged the agree­ment’.

He recalled that Paki­stan had three times made sovereign com­mitments and then backtracked on them.

“Now the IMF is not interested in giving money to Pakistan,” he said, emphasising that the Fund doesn’t trust the government in Is­lamabad.

Pakistan continues to woo the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to secure the much-needed bailout from the global lender. Pakistan is now the only South Asian country that’s yet to secure a bailout from the multilateral lender as Sri Lanka clinched financing this week and Bangladesh pushes on with carrying out IMF-mandated reforms.

Pakistan has taken tough measures includ­ing increasing taxes and energy prices, and allowing its currency to weaken to restart a $6.5 billion IMF loan package. The funds will offer some relief to a na­tion still reeling from a dollar shortage that has raised the probability of the economy slipping into a recession ahead of elections this year.

Regarding the pet­rol relief subsidy an­nounced by the govern­ment on Sunday, Miftah said that he believed this formula would not be effective.

“We provide subsi­dies on petrol by taking loans,” he said. Since the government announced the petroleum subsidy — which initially amounted to Rs50 per litre and was later increased to Rs100 per litre — several red flags were raised as ana­lysts and economic ex­perts have been criticis­ing the move as it may jeopardise the ongoing struggle to convince the IMF board.

IMF’s resident rep­resentative for Paki­stan Esther Perez Ruiz had also clarified that the Washington-based lender wasn’t consulted on the government’s plan to raise fuel prices for wealthier motorists to finance a subsidy for lower-income people.

“Fund staff are seek­ing greater details on the scheme in terms of its operation, cost, targeting, protections against fraud and abuse, and offsetting mea­sures, and will carefully discuss these elements with the authorities,” she said.

This is not the first time petrol price subsi­dies have been a stick­ing point for the IMF. The previous govern­ment led by former premier Imran Khan had given out petrol subsidies, which stalled the IMF programme last year.

Warning of the risks, Miftah mentioned that if Pakistan defaulted it would be a grave situa­tion for the country as people belonging to the rich segment will bear the brunt but the poor people won’t be able to make ends meet.