'IMF second review'

This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed "IMF second review" carried by the newspaper yesterday. The author, Dr Hafiz A Pasha, has deeply analysed the press release issued by the IMF mission at the end of global lending agency's staff review of the Extended Fund Facility. That objectivity, or rather generosity, characterises Dr Pasha's argument is a fact which can be discerned from the opening lines of his article that he has devoted in praise of the incumbent government by saying that "There is need to appreciate efforts of the Government in meeting all the six performance criteria again as was the case in the first program review. This should have led automatically to agreement between the authorities and the IMF mission on the review and a commitment to submit the review to the Executive Board of the IMF for release of the third tranche of the loan to Pakistan."

From the common man's perspective, however, neither the government nor the IMF deserves any accolades in the midst of higher food inflation and wheat and sugar crises. He's least bothered about government-IMF rhetoric that the programme has led to stabilising economy. Nor is he impressed by a substantial decline in current account deficit or the arrest of rupee slide against dollar. To his chagrin, his life is now more miserable than before. In my view, both government and the IMF are responsible for his plight.