[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text dp_text_size=”size-4″]The Ministry of Finance denied on Saturday that the federal government has given orders to stop paying salaries and pensions, noting that all such rumours are baseless.
The statement follows a story in a local English newspaper that the finance ministry has ordered the Accountant General of Pakistan Revenue (AGPR) to halt paying all bills for “federal ministries/divisions and affiliated departments until further directives.”
According to the report, even the clearing of salary bills has been halted.
According to a press release from the concerned federal ministry, the Finance Division, this is totally untrue as no such instructions have been given.
Fake news and spreading the same cause harm to the national economic interests.
Kindly refrain from circulating such reports/news without verifying same from the concerned ministry! pic.twitter.com/crimzY44b4— Ishaq Dar (@MIshaqDar50) February 25, 2023
The statement also noted that AGPR had certified that pay and pension payments would be made on schedule and that they had already been processed.
“Furthermore, other payments are being handled in a usual manner. There are also rumours going around that the government has told businesses to stop making these payments,” the statement continued.
Ishaq Dar, the minister of finance, likewise referred to the stories as “false news,” claiming that their dissemination hurt the interests of the country’s economy.
Kindly hold off on disseminating such stories or news before having them verified by the relevant ministry, he said.
The new development comes as confusion surrounding the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement with Pakistan on Wednesday failed to resolve the global lender’s impasse on a new contentious issue involving the permanent imposition of a Rs3.82 per unit debt surcharge to recover an additional Rs284 billion from electricity consumers.
The IMF has asked the government to keep the fee as a constant part of power bills until the government pays the Rs800 billion circular debt parked in a firm, which it decided to do by imposing the new surcharge for eight months (March–October 2023).
According to the sources, the government had already satisfied more than 90% of the requirements, thus the finance minister pushed the IMF to make the staff-level agreement public. Nonetheless, despite a significant increase in power prices, the circular debt in the electricity sector will still rise to Rs2.4 trillion, and the IMF deemed the Rs3.82 per unit debt surcharge to be “essential” for its settlement.
On February 9, the IMF’s 10-day staff visit came to a conclusion. Two weeks later, both sides have failed to resolve their disagreements on significant policy issues.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
