The IMF has yet to approve disbursements of $1.1 billion originally scheduled to be disbursed last November.
An International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation will meet the Pakistani Finance Minister on the sidelines of a conference in Geneva as Pakistan struggling to restart the relief program.
The IMF has yet to approve the initial $1.1 billion disbursement scheduled to be disbursed last November, leaving Pakistan with only enough foreign exchange reserves to cover imports for a month.
“The IMF delegation is scheduled to meet the finance minister [Ishaq] Dar on the sidelines of the Geneva conference to discuss outstanding issues and the way forward,” an IMF spokesman told Reuters news agency on Sunday.
Local media Dawn cited an IMF spokeswoman as saying that the organization’s CEO Kristalina Georgieva had a “constructive call” with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday.
A spokesperson told Dawn: “MD once again expresses its sympathies to those directly affected by the floods and supports Pakistan’s efforts to build a more sustainable recovery.
The conference in Geneva, co-hosted by Prime Minister Sharif and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, will seek to gather international support for the country in the aftermath of last year’s devastating floods.
The floods kill at least 1,700 people and cause billions of dollars in damage to critical infrastructure.
A United Nations report published in December said some 240,000 people in the southern province of Sindh are still displaced while around 8 million people are “likely to be flooded or live near flooded areas”.
A plan that sets a timeline and funding for the reconstruction effort has been a key point in the negotiations to pass a ninth review that will free up IMF funds and unlock funding sources. other international.
Dar has criticized the IMF in recent months, publicly saying the lender acted “irregularly” in its dealings with Pakistan, which joined a $7 billion bailout program in 2019. .
