© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in Islamabad, Pakistan on June 4, 2021. REUTERS/Saiyna Bashir/File Photo
By Asif Shahzad
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The International Money Fund (IMF) has asked Pakistan to explain how it would finance a $1.5 billion subsidy package announced by Prime Minister Imran Khan, Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin said on Sunday.
“There are no problems. We have given them details of where the money would come from,” Tarin said, adding that the IMF wanted details of the means to finance the fuel and electricity subsidy that Pakistan will receive. frozen for the next four months. to the new budget.
The IMF has begun its seventh review of the $6 billion bailout package agreed with Pakistan in 2019, and Tarin said he will have a final meeting with the lender on Tuesday.
The IMF asked if it should see the agreements on the dividends from state-owned enterprises (SOEs), as well as details on the reserve funds that the central government will receive from provinces.
“We’ve done our homework,” Tarin said.
Some of the grant money would also come from revenue Pakistan received above target this fiscal year, he had previously said.
Earlier this month, Tarin said sales would reach 6.1 trillion Pakistani rupees ($34.2 billion), compared to a target of 5.8 trillion rupees.
The embattled Khan, faced with a vote of no confidence to remove him from office by opposition parties, had announced a cut in petrol and electricity prices despite a surge in global energy prices.
oil market.
The South Asian country had to implement fiscal tightening measures to pass the latest IMF assessment, which was delayed by months as the government struggled to complete previous action that the lender had demanded to release $1 billion in February.
(Additional reporting by Syed Raza Hasan; editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman & Shri Navaratnam)
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