The recently released ‘IMF [International Monetary Fund] Country Report No. 25/332’, which contains second review of extended fund facility (EFF) programme, and first review of resilience and sustainability facility (RSF), indicated strong commitment of the authorities in following an otherwise neoliberal- and austerity-based economic agenda.

The EFF programme’s fiscal consolidation which, given the speed and depth of adjustment is in the writer’s opinion more appropriately referred to as fiscal austerity target, in the shape of achieving a primary surplus by end-June 2025 – one of the seven ‘binding’ quantitative performance criteria (QPC), where this specific one was ‘Ceiling on the general government primary budget deficit (cumulative, excl. grants, billions of Pakistani rupees)– of Rs. 2,719 billion (or the same figure taken in negative if the deficit terminology of QPC is followed) was met.

Be that as it may, it is tragically ironic that reaching this surplus was facilitated by, for instance, two exceedingly important areas of economy, economic empowerment of the demos, and overall welfare, and this is spending on health and education. Hence, among the nine ‘nonbinding’ quantitative targets at the macroeconomic level, called ‘indicative targets’ (IT) – alternatively also called ‘indicative benchmarks’ (IB) in IMF programme literature – the ‘Cumulative floor on general government budgetary health and education spending (billions of Pakistani rupees)’ was missed.

OPINION: Growth model and IMF conditionalities — II

First of all, it is strange to see, and in turn, leaves in bad taste the priorities of authorities and IMF that such an important target – given it pertains to health and education and for a country that has traditionally been among the countries, which........

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