By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Lawmakers sharply rebuked the government on Wednesday for what they described as systemic failures in combating corruption, citing a scathing new assessment from the International Monetary Fund that laid bare weaknesses across state institutions, from the judiciary to tax authorities.
The criticism unfolded in separate meetings of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and the Senate Standing Committee on Finance, where members reviewed the IMF’s Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment, released last month. The report, which identifies lapses in governance and anti-corruption measures, has become a flash point in Pakistani politics, showing the challenges facing the country as it navigates overlapping bailout programs with the lender.
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, addressing the National Assembly panel, pushed back against interpretations that the document amounted to a broad condemnation of the current administration or legislative bodies. “We initiated and facilitated this report,” he said. “Over the last few months, there were more than 100 meetings involving 30-plus departments.”
The assessment, part of a framework the IMF has applied to about 20 borrower countries, contains 423 paragraphs and 92 recommendations, including 15 priority ones and 77 guiding suggestions spread across seven thematic areas. Fully implementing the measures, the report states, could boost Pakistan’s gross domestic product by 5 to 6.5 percent.
Pakistan must finalise and submit action plans on the 15 priority recommendations by Dec. 31, Aurangzeb told the committee, as a condition tied to the country’s ongoing financial support from the IMF “We are supposed to come up with an action plan, around the 15 recommendations,” he said. “The time frame for the action plan [submission] is Dec. 31.”
The report’s publication was a prerequisite for the IMF Executive Board’s anticipated approval of a $1.2 billion disbursement this month, under Pakistan’s financial and climate-linked programs. The country secured a $7 billion bailout in September 2024 after protracted negotiations, followed by a $1.4 billion, 28-month Resilience and Sustainability Facility in May 2025, amid acute macroeconomic pressures.
Committee Chairman Syed Naveed Qamar framed the IMF’s findings as a damning verdict on the nation’s leadership. “Not only an indictment of the government but also of the parliament,” he said. Aurangzeb rejected that view, emphasising that the assessment was not targeted at any specific institution or the current government. He noted that similar diagnostics had been conducted in many other countries and that every implicated department, including the judiciary, had been instructed to prepare its response by the deadline.
The 15 priority recommendations touch on a wide array of ministries and institutions, including the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority, the Special Investment Facilitation Council, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, the Federal Board of Revenue, the National Accountability Bureau, and the ministries of law, finance, interior, information technology and planning.
Among the specifics: The report calls on the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority to enhance transparency by ending preferential treatment for state-owned enterprises. It directs the Special Investment Facilitation Council, a civil-military body charged with investment oversight, to issue its first annual report with complete details on projects and concessions.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is urged to establish a central database of federal regulations, prune unnecessary rules and institute a review process. Together with the information technology ministry, it must speed up the digitisation of compliance procedures. “Within 15 months, establish the list of regulatory processes to be digitised, and demonstrate progress in introducing digitised compliance procedures,” the IMF stated.
The law ministry is advised to release a performance-assessment methodology for courts and judges, incorporating data on how administrative tribunals and special courts manage commercial disputes. For the finance ministry, the report mandates publishing a tax-simplification strategy by May 2026 and providing annual updates on implementation. It also demands restructuring of the Federal Board of Revenue to curb the independence of field offices and overhaul human-resource systems.
Finance Secretary Imdadullah Bosal informed the committee that an action plan drawn from the report would be ready by Dec. 31. He added that civil servants’ assets would be disclosed publicly in the next fiscal year and that no supplementary grants had been issued last year, though technical ones were allocated within the approved budget.
The National Assembly committee delved into discrepancies between the recommended reforms and current practices, urging the government to shift from after-the-fact approvals to requiring parliamentary consent in advance, or at least quarterly reviews. It acknowledged that emergencies, like wartime needs, might warrant some leeway.
On the Income Tax Ordinance (Third Amendment Bill 2025), the panel pressed the finance ministry to devise two or three alternative options that bolster impartiality and curb discretion. Officials are committed to reassessing and presenting revised proposals. Qamar said the committee had noted the government’s stance and would next summon independent experts to weigh in on the report.
In the Senate, the finance committee received a similar briefing but voiced unanimous condemnation of corruption, calling for stringent steps to root it out.
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