Jhagra denies reports of sabotaging IMF deal, said letter was for MoF not IMF

Finance and Health Minister KP, Taimur Khan Jhagra denied earlier reports of the KP government writing a letter to influence the IMF loan deal. On Friday, Finance Minister Jhagra took to Twitter to clarify his stance on the issue of him writing a letter to influence and sabotage the IMF agreement contrary to the reports published earlier.

The KP minister said that he did not write any letter to the IMF, and categorically said that he had written it to Finance Minister Miftah Ismail. Taimur stated in the letter, that the entire effect of not resolving these concerns will really result in an Rs100 billion unfunded liability in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa budget According to the provincial government’s estimation.

It went on to say that the monsoon flooding had made the situation in the region even worse and had destroyed Swat, DI Khan, and Tank. According to the report, the cost of rescue, relief, rehabilitation, and building again will probably run into the tens of billions.
Without the resolution, the provincial finance minister claimed that these circumstances make it “impossible” to leave a surplus.

The KP government had agreed to achieve an Rs117 billion cash surplus through a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in order to comply with the IMF accord. Jhagra told Miftah that because of devastating floods, and without the resolution of the difficulties noted previously, for the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to truly leave a surplus will be close to impossible.

Jhagra said, “The follow-up letter that I sent today was simply in continuation, after about 50 days of repeated attempts to resolve our financial issues fairly and obtain a meeting quickly.”

Miftah during a press conference on Friday had termed the letter “deplorable.” He called the letter a “conspiracy to derail the IMF program and sink the rupee.”

On Saturday PTI Secretary General Asad Umar also defended Jhagra and said that the minister only asked for KP’s right and no one should “suppress his voice”.