IN remarks reported widely in the media, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has been quoted complaining that the IMF is playing politics with Pakistan and changing the goalposts at critical moments to delay the disbursement of funds.
Those who know him and have spoken with him over the years know his propensity to speak at length off the cuff and also know that he harbours great mistrust, bordering on animus sometimes, towards the IMF. This is not the first time he has rolled out the ‘geopolitics’ card when talking about delays in getting Fund approval for disbursement of the next tranche. He did the same as finance minister in 1999 and again in 2022, 2023.
But is it true? More likely what Pakistan is facing is an absence of geopolitics on the IMF board. Between 2001 and 2021, the country had more or less a free run of things at the Fund, when programme approvals came swiftly and reviews went smoothly and waivers were granted without too much trouble. It is not difficult to note what these dates denote: the arrival and continued deployment of American troops in Afghanistan. Since August 2021, when the deployment ended, so did Pakistan’s ‘special treatment’ at the Fund.
Dar wishes to argue that the Fund held out completion of the reviews under the last Extended Fund Facility “for eight months”, as he did in his reported remarks given in London, due to geopolitics. He has been quoted as saying the Fund wanted to push Pakistan into a default. His reference........