Former finance minister Miftah Ismail believes the path on which Pakistan is heading might take the country towards default as he called on the government to take steps to avert the looming threat, a private TV channel reported. “Pakistan should not default, however, I definitely believe that the path we are on might take us towards default as the danger has increased. We should take steps to avoid the danger [of default],” Miftah told a private TV channel. The ex-minister said the threat of default will keep looming over Pakistan until the government completes the International Monetary Fund (IMF) the ninth review. “Pakistan is in jeopardy; it has gone back in jeopardy and as long as IMF is not back on the table, the threat of default will remain high,” Miftah – who held the post of finance minister for over five months – said. The former finance czar refused to accept Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s narrative of early elections and said that the previous government had pushed the country towards default.
“Khan is responsible for pushing Pakistan towards default; he is the one who broke his promise with the IMF; Khan is the one who wanted to derail the IMF programme when we tried to revive it under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s leadership.”
Pakistan ended its immediate default risk earlier this month when the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) made the payment of $1 billion for the sukuk bond.
But since then, the foreign exchange reserves have hit a critical level after falling 10.45% to $6,714.9 million – a four-year low – as of December 2.
The fiscal deficit has already touched 1% of the GDP in the first quarter of the current financial year against 0.7% of the GDP agreed with the IMF.
