Trouble at the start line

RARELY have I seen things as scattered and messy as they are today, in the realm of economic management in any case. At the epicentre of the mess is the IMF programme, all dressed up with nowhere to go. A staff-level agreement (SLA) was announced by the Fund on July 12, more than five weeks ago. Then on July 23, on the eve of his departure for China, the finance minister assured the country during a televised interview that board approval for the programme should be done by end August. On his return from China, we learned that the government raised the question of rescheduling some payment obligations to sponsors of Chinese power producers, as well as advance rollover guarantees for maturing obligations on debt owed to Chinese commercial banks among others. We were also told that the process for getting all this had begun during the visit. Meaning we had, after a long and fraught journey, finally reached the start line of where we needed to be.