Owaisi slams IMF for fresh loan approval to Pakistan

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday slammed International Monetary Fund (IMF) for approving the immediate disbursement of about USD 1 billion to Pakistan under the ongoing Extended Fund Facility.

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The Hyderabad MP labelled IMF as ‘International Militant Fund’ for helping a country that has been accused of backing and funding terrorism activities in India. “They are official beggars. They took a loan from the IMF of $1 billion. IMF is not the International Monetary Fund; they are giving the International Militant Fund to Pakistan,” said Owaisi.

IMF on Friday had approved the immediate disbursement of about

USD 1 billion to Pakistan under the ongoing Extended Fund Facility.

“How did the USA, Germany, and Japan agree to this? Forget leadership, they (Pakistan) don’t even know how to run an economy. You people are sitting there and telling us what Islam is, but all you have are wrong policies to spoil the peace here and create conflict between Hindus and Muslims,” said Owaisi.

The IMF is an organisation of 189 member countries that works to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world.

In a statement, the Washington-based global lender said its Executive Board concluded the initial review of Pakistan’s economic reform programme under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement.

“This decision allows for an immediate disbursement of around USD 1 billion (SDR 760 million), bringing total disbursements under the arrangement to about USD 2.1 billion (SDR 1.52 billion),” the agency said.

At the IMF, India pointed out that Pakistan has been a frequent borrower from the IMF, with disbursements in 28 of the past 35 years.

“In the last five years alone, there have been four IMF programmes. Had the previous programs succeeded, Pakistan would not have needed yet another bailout,” India stated, questioning whether the fault lies in “the effectiveness of the IMF program designs, their monitoring, or their implementation by Pakistan,” India told IMF.