The IMF has released its report on Pakistan’s Governance and Corruption, and lo and behold!! It has found that there is elite capture in Pakistan, and thus corruption. It has claimed that while corruption recovery efforts have yielded 5.31 trillion so far, that was only a fraction of the actual cost of corruption. The IMF’s concern with corruption reflects bothe the pervasive nature of the menace as well as the pervasiveness of the IMF’s oversight of the economy. Because the IMF sets tax collection targets, it is concerned with the leakages, such as corruption, that prevent those targets being achieved.
However, that may explain why the IMF projections are not always corrupt. There is every danger of the corruption charge just becoming an excuse to cover up for the shortcomings of the IMF predictions and assumptions. This is problematic, for it will not lead to a correct solution of the economy’s problems. It is also too much of a cop-out at a time of rising demand for climate justice. One of the most used arguments by the indutrialised West is that the Third World countries that need the most help are corrupt and must be lent the money rather than given it. Apart from these general issues, the IMF now gets to intrude in areas from which it was previously excluded. For example, it wants the annual report of the Special Investment Facilitation Council published, with a list provided of the investments that have been facilitated. The IMF Seal of Good Housekeeping may be needed if the country is to access international money markets, but it seems that the cost will be to ensure that any institution still not completely under the IMF’s thumb, must come under it.
The government cannot ignore corruption, but at the same time, it must keep in mind that national interests are not sacrificed purely for money. Thry may be thrown to the wind in a bid to satisfy foreign interests. It should never be forgotten that the IMF is not a benign institution, but very much part of the Washington Consensus which the USA developed after World War II to bend a decolonizing world to its will. Pakistan has been down that road before, and the results are not beneficial.
