Islamabad:
The Minister of Finance, Muhammad Aurengzeb, said that Pakistan could not prepare invertible projects to use $ 11 billion, promised by foreign lenders during the Geneva Conference almost three years ago. This inability has led to the gap between the government’s need for foreign aid and its ability to spend it effectively.
“Let us accept that we could not find invertible projects to benefit from the billions of dollars, promised in Geneva,” said Aurengzeb while talking at a conference in Islamabad on Wednesday.
He questioned whether the state institutions had learned something from the devastating floods of 2022 and faced two existential threats: climate change and rapidly growing population. The floods of 2022 caused damage worth $ 30 billion.
Aurengzeb said that once again, Pakistan faces ‘billions of dollars in damages’ of the floods ongoing. Their comments arrived a day after the Ministry of Economic Affairs informed the Public Accounts Committee that of $ 6.4 billion in promises of project financing, only $ 2.8 billion were disbursed.
In general, foreign lenders had promised $ 11 billion, including $ 4.6 billion for oil financing and $ 6.4 billion for rehabilitation and reconstruction, but disbursements remained limited due to the absence of credible projects.
The official data show that the World Bank promised $ 2.2 billion and has so far disbursed $ 1.6 billion. The Asian Development Bank committed $ 1.6 billion, but has only released $ 513 million. Similarly, China and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) promised $ 1.1 billion but extended only $ 250 million.
The Islamic Development Bank promised to give $ 600 million, but launched $ 231 million. Paris Club countries promised almost $ 800 million, but released $ 139 million. The United States promised to give $ 100 million and gave $ 70 million.
Meanwhile, heavy rains in the upper basins of the Chenab River have swelled downstream flows, which leads to the Ministry of Water Resources to issue a flood alert for the Sutlej, Ravi and Chenab rivers.
Aurengzeb emphasized that unless Pakistan addresses population growth and climate change, cannot expect to become an economy of $ 3 billion by 2047, its centenary year.
