Battered by four new conditions for loans, Pakistani rulers said, we are being treated like beggars

IMF has put four new conditions for loans in front of Pakistan standing on the verge of bankruptcy. The staff-level agreement has been talked about only after the implementation of these conditions. Pakistani officials have called the IMF's new demands a deliberate attempt to put pressure on Pakistan's troubled economy along the lines of 1998. Even in 1998, after the nuclear test, the IMF had put 24 conditions in front of Pakistan for the loan and barely Pakistan was saved from defaulting. Furious with these new conditions of IMF, Pakistani officials say that member country Pakistan is being treated like a beggar. The new conditions, officials say that the kind of new conditions being imposed by the IMF in the name of helping the poor will increase the difficulties of the poor in the country.

IMF has kept four new conditions: –

1- The condition that the IMF is passing the most to Pakistan is the demand for the permanent imposition of an electricity surcharge of Rs.3.82. Pakistan is ready to impose this surcharge for some time, but as a democratic country with an independent judiciary and sovereign parliament, Pakistan is not accepting the demand to impose this surcharge forever. Along with this, putting this burden on the poor people of the country also seems to be a politically suicidal step for the Sharif government.

2- The second condition of IFF is to link the exchange value of Pak currency to the market. Pakistan is afraid that by doing this there will be a huge fall in the Pak currency.

3- The third condition of the IMF is to increase interest rates by 150 to 250 basis points.

4- Simultaneously, the IMF has said that Pakistan will have to take written assurances from its bilateral partner countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and the UAE that they will compensate for its $ 7 billion financial shortfall on the external front. Pakistan has objections to this condition also. Pakistan is also calculating this financial shortfall as $5 billion instead of $7 billion and Pakistan is also finding the condition of written assurance very difficult.

The Pakistani army is also not untouched by rising inflation. Due to this, the supply of ration in the soldiers' mess has also been affected. The issue of the adequate food supply has also been taken up with Army Chief General Asim Munir. Field commanders of the army have said that due to the cuts, the army is no longer in a position to provide proper meals to its jawans two times a day.

A report by Human Rights Watch in 2013 highlighted that the anti-Shia group has forged an alliance with Pakistan's military. Now according to a report in the Baltimore Post, after the arrival of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the troubled Shia community of Pakistan is fearing that they have become more unsafe in Pakistan than before.

The Pakistani rupee depreciated further by Rs 4.6 (1.76 percent) on Wednesday after the news of new conditions from the IMF and the Pakistan rupee fell to Rs 266.22 against the dollar. On the other hand, a decline of 480.65 points (1.19 percent) was registered in the Pakistani stock market on Wednesday.