KARACHI: Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance, Dr. Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, on Wednesday defended the government’s decision to approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $6 billion bailout package, saying “the loan program restored the confidence of the international community” in Pakistan.

Thrashing the opposition’s criticism in the National Assembly, Shaikh said, “It was a compulsion due to the circumstances we inherited.” He also pointed out that successive governments in the past had approached the Fund and the same political parties were slamming the move now.

“No one goes to the IMF happily,” he added. “The IMF program has given confidence to the world community. The World Bank and Asian Development Bank have increased their support to Pakistan.”

Pakistan and a visiting IMF mission are interacting with each other since February 3 on the technical and policy aspects of the loan package.

According to officials of the finance ministry, talks with the IMF team have reached an advanced stage that will enable the South Asian country to draw the third tranche of about $450 million in March 2020. So far, Pakistan has secured $1.44 billion under the loan program.

Shaikh also dispelled the impression that the $6 billion program was offered to the country under stringent provisions, saying “the $6 billion financing was done on easy conditions.”

He informed the parliamentarians about the steps taken by the government to stabilize the economy while highlighting the fact that it had reduced the current account deficit from $20 billion to $8 billion.

“Our income and expenditure difference is in surplus for the first time in 10 years. I assured you that the non-tax revenue collection would be Rs1.5 trillion,” Shaikh continued.

He also pointed out that skeptics believed that the US dollar would appreciate to Rs 200, adding: “I was saying with full confidence that the exchange rate had stabilized.”

The PM’s adviser said the government had taken steps to reduce expenditures and frozen the defense budget with the help of the country’s military leadership.

However, Shaikh conceded that inflation was one of the major challenges facing the incumbent government, though he assured everyone that the prices of essential commodities would not be increased further.

Opposition members slammed the PM’s adviser’s speech and said he had quoted incorrect numbers. “I feel sorry to say that he quoted wrong figures at the floor of the house and his speech was not logical,” Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh, member of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee of on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs, told Arab News.

The president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) business and commerce wing also said that while according to Shaikh “revenue collection in seven months has declined by Rs100 billion against the target, everybody has the figure of it falling Rs350 billion short of the target.”

The PML-N politician further alleged that the government’s moves have rendered 2.2 million people jobless and 8 million people have been pushed below the poverty line. “If the situation continues for the five years tenure, around 10 million people will lose their jobs,” he added.