We need to pull our own weight

The Shehbaz Sharif-led coalition seems to have learnt it the hard way. His government is reported to have finally requested the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to send over its mission to Islamabad — preferably by the end of this week — for discussions around all the ‘thorny’ issues that have held back progress on its ninth programme review for almost four months, delaying disbursement of the next loan tranche of $1.2 billion. Reports suggest that the government has finally realised that the early resumption of the stalled IMF bailout programme is also crucial to unlock other promised official multilateral and bilateral financial assistance needed immediately to push back the possibility of a sovereign default. As opposed to its previous stance, the finance ministry has now expressed its willingness to discuss the country’s return to a market-based exchange rate, increase electricity and gas rates, impose additional taxes to make up for the revenue shortfall in order to contain the budget deficit within the original programme targets, and, possibly remove the import restrictions as demanded by the lender of last resort.