After showing slight improvement for a while, the growth prospects for the economy of Pakistan are once again sliding downwards. The World Bank in its latest forecast has highlighted certain downside risks that the government must take care of. First, Pakistan’s economic growth rate is likely to come down to 3.4 percent during the current fiscal year against 3.9 in the last fiscal year. The WB has suggested that if the government of Pakistan implements…
Posts published in “ECONOMY”
ISLAMABAD: Two premier representative bodies of lawyers have hinted at mounting a challenge to the ordinance through which the president has been empowered to extend the term of retired Justice Javed Iqbal, the National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) chairman. His four-year term is set to end on Friday (today). The two bodies are the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) and the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA). “I have called an urgent meeting of the PBC’s executive committee…
ISLAMABAD: Vowing to implement the National Accountability (Amendment) Ordinance, 2021, promulgated on Wednesday, the National Accountability Bureau on Thursday presented its three-year performance since its incumbent chairman, retired Justice Javed Iqbal, assumed charge of his office. “NAB always believes working in accordance with the law. NAB will implement NAB ordinance in letter and spirit as per the law,” a NAB spokesperson said when asked by Dawn about the bureau’s reaction to the new ordinance. Experts…
ISLAMABAD: The presidential ordinance about the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has served to “disrupt” the otherwise smooth proceedings on references and bail petitions relating to the anti-graft watchdog, it emerged on Thursday. The Islamabad High Court (IHC) has sought assistance of NAB’s prosecutors and senior lawyer Farooq H. Naek to decide the fate of pending bail petitions in cases pertaining to the National Accountability Ordinance (NAO). President Dr Arif Alvi on Wednesday promulgated the ordinance…
• Vows to challenge controversial ordinance at every forum• PPP to bring resolution in Senate to reject ordinanceISLAMABAD: Vowing to challenge the newly-introduced National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Ordinance at every forum and “with full force,” the opposition on Thursday submitted a requisition notice to the National Assembly secretariat for convening the session of the lower house of parliament to discuss the issue of the extension in the tenure of NAB chairman retired Justice Javed Iqbal…
Prime Minister Imran Khan repeated his call for ending the illicit flow of money from developing countries to tax havens and other developed countries. During his speech at the 15th UN Conference on Trade and Development, Imran noted that the UN’s Financial Accountability, Transparency, and Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda (FACTI) Panel had estimated that around $7 trillion of global wealth was parked in tax havens around the world, an amount that is expected…
Pakistan has fared better than most countries in the world right through the Covid-19 pandemic, but that does not mean that the global threat is receding. In fact, so devastating has been the impact of the Delta variant of the coronavirus that most countries have had to go back to lockdowns as their healthcare systems came under more strain than they could handle. And now the IMF (International Monetary Fund) has said that things are…
ISLAMABAD: The NAB ordinance paved the way for the incumbent chairman Justice (R) Javed Iqbal to continue to perform as head of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) till the federal government develops consensus for his replacement. The new ordinance, President Dr Arif Aliv promulgated on Wednesday (Oct 6), also provides the outgoing NAB chief an opportunity to get another four-year term for the office of NAB Chairman. A 20-page newly-proposed ordinance, shared by the Ministry…
ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin on Wednesday took strict notice of high prices of wheat flour prevailing in Sindh and Balochistan and urged the chief secretaries to start daily release of wheat for stabilising its prices. The federal government is constantly criticising the provincial governments, especially Sindh, for not matching the price fixed by Punjab, which is releasing wheat to flour mills at Rs1,950 per 40 kg. As a result, wheat flour is costlier in…
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will start staff-level discussions with the International Monetary Fund by end of the current month for the release of sixth tranche under the $6 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF), a top official confirmed Dawn on Saturday. The IMF board has a scheduled a meeting later this month to conduct its sixth review of Pakistan programme. “Our technical team will start virtual discussions with the IMF technical team on Sept 29,” Finance Minister Shaukat…
Pakistan’s trade deficit widened to record levels over the last two months, and with exports continuing to slide, we can expect some difficult policy decisions in the coming weeks. The government’s own data, released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, shows that previous attempts to address the situation clearly failed, with heavy export subsidies and currency devaluation doing nothing to improve the numbers. The numbers are well beyond the government’s worst-case expectations for the balance…