Finance ministry trying to save face over damning WB report

The finance ministry is reportedly scrambling in an effort to get the World Bank (WB) to soften a damning draft report of the WB which has said that Pakistan’s budget has slipped and further lost its credibility.

The report, which says that the public finance management system in the country has also deteriorated, came down hard on Pakistan, and has downgraded the country’s ranking on almost all 31 fiscal management-related indicators.

The final draft of the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) report asseses Pakistan’s public finance management system and its budgets from fiscal year 2015-16 to 2017-18. It had been shared with the government in June.

The report was particularly harsh on the finance ministry, which has been unable to do its job and has let fiscal violations run rampant. However, despite attempts by the ministry to have the report softened, officials of the WB have said that the report is final.

Sources said various wings of the Ministry of Finance were putting responsibility on each other but so far no action had been taken in that regard.

When compared with a similar assessment that the World Bank carried out in 2012, the country fared poorer on almost all indicators and seven key pillars.