The IMF's superficial assessment of corruption |
The IMF's 2025 Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment for Pakistan has stirred considerable debate. Many see it as a bold attempt to confront corruption in one of its major borrower countries, highlighting how this problem runs far deeper than a handful of scandals or a few "rotten apples". Skeptics of international financial institutions, however, consider the IMF's framing as narrow and deflective, shifting attention away from the Fund's own role in Pakistan's economic troubles.
Although the IMF has shaped Pakistan's economic policies for decades, its diagnostic assessment disregards the consequences of the IMF's own structural reform agenda on the country. Instead, the assessment concentrates solely on domestic shortcomings, citing corrupt practices in fiscal governance and public procurement, weaknesses in regulatory bodies, state-owned enterprises, and even the judicial system, as the main causes of Pakistan's economic problems.
The IMF's assessment has........