World Bank holds back its report on Pakistan poverty situation

After a sharp reaction from some key government departments, the World Bank has decided to hold back its report on poverty situation in Pakistan.
Sources said, the Finance Ministry and Planning Commission had shown some reservations over the World Bank''s claims that poverty in Pakistan has gone up irrationally in the PPP rule against semi-military regime of Pervez Musharraf, when according to multinational donors like the World Bank itself, poverty in the country had declined substantially.
According to the World Bank''s last report, poverty had gone down to 22.9 percent in 2006 from 39 percent in 2002. The WB report had substantial data to support its claims that poverty went irrationally up between 2008 and 2010 but the officials of Finance Ministry and Planning Commission showed their utmost anguish as to why the World Bank was showing upward trend in poverty in the PPP regime.
PPP came to power in 2008 and more than one international institutions have claimed that Pakistan has witnessed a sharp rise in poverty from 2008 to 2010.
The government economic wizards are, however, convinced that their tailored economic policies were the best and result-oriented the country ever witnessed and the claims of the international donors like the World Bank were contrary to the facts on ground.
They also mock the World Bank''s claims that the government''s poor performance on economic front has resulted in quick downfall in per capita income forcing a large number of Pakistanis to slip down from an average income group to below poverty line. The World Bank''s report indicated that Pakistan is witnessing a troublesome phase on the economic front, as on one hand per capita income has shrunk while on the other inflation is getting out of control, thus adding to the woes of the common man.
According to sources, these claims of the World Bank irked the top government functionaries in the Finance and Planning Commission and they took the matter with the WB country office in Islamabad asking it not to release its report 2008 on poverty situation in Pakistan.
"The World Bank has accepted our demand and decided to hold back its report on Pakistan''s poverty situation," a senior official of the Planning Commission said on Sunday. The World Bank does not have any appreciation in its credit with regard to its report on poverty situation in Pakistan. It got annoyed the government in 2002 and then again in 2005 by releasing the statistics showing higher trend in poverty in Pakistan.
Its statistics and methodology adopted to assess the poverty level in Pakistan, has been a bitter reality. However, this time the World Bank''s decision of withholding the entire report on poverty situation in Pakistan, is something beyond one''s thinking. It is the job of the World Bank to show the mirror to the government on all key issues including poverty so that its economic wizards could have some idea that what ever they claim in their presentation to the top bosses was not factual.