ISLAMABAD: Pakistan must finalize and submit action plans on a 15-point set of governance and anti-corruption reforms recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) before Dec. 31, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb told a parliamentary panel on Wednesday.
The reforms stem from the IMF’s Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment, published last month as part of the lender’s broader conditions under Pakistan’s ongoing bailout programs. The report identified weaknesses across state institutions, including the civil service, judiciary, tax administration, regulators and procurement systems, and said fully implementing the recommended measures could raise Pakistan’s GDP by 5–6.5 percent.
IMF governance diagnostics are part of a newer framework applied to around 20 borrower countries, but Pakistan’s assessment drew unusually sharp political attention because it highlighted systemic failures across all branches of the state. The report’s publication was also a prior action for the IMF Executive Board’s approval of a $1.2 billion disbursement expected next month, under Pakistan’s overlapping financial and climate-linked programs.
“We are supposed to come up with an action plan, around the 15 recommendations [of IMF]. The time frame for the action plan [submission] is Dec. 31,” Aurangzeb told the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance.
