COMMENT: Possible exit strategy from the IMF programme

THE International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) executive board is set to meet next week to discuss the approval of a three-year Extended Fund Facility (EFF) for Pakistan ending in the fiscal year 2027-28 — the 24th time the country is going to enter into an agreement with the lender. There seems to be a broad consensus that it is in Pakistan’ s best interests to exit from the IMF programme. The reasons are quite obvious — the loss of autonomous decision-making by the sovereign, inability to set its own priorities and their phasing, timing and sequencing, and getting out of a straitjacket framework of short-term performance criteria, structural benchmarks agreed with the IMF.