ISLAMABAD – In line with this commitment, a three member scoping mission of International Monetary Fund is visiting Pakistan to undertake the Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment of seven ministries/entities, including Finance Division, State Bank, Election Commission etc, with the focus to examine the severity of corruption vulnerabilities across six core state functions.
The IMF has long provided advice and technical assistance that has helped to foster good governance, such as promoting public sector transparency and accountability, a spokesperson of the Finance Division said on Sunday while explaining the IMF’s mission visit to Pakistan for conducting a Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment. The mission will mainly engage with organisations like Finance Division, Federal Board of Revenue, State Bank of Pakistan, Auditor General of Pakistan, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, Election Commission of Pakistan and Ministry of Law and Justice.
Traditionally the IMF’s main focus has been on encouraging countries to correct macroeconomic imbalances, reduce inflation, and undertake key trade, exchange, and other market reforms needed to improve efficiency and support sustained economic growth, the spokesperson said. While these remain its main focus in all its member countries, however, the IMF has found that a much broader range of institutional reforms is needed if countries are to establish and maintain private sector confidence and thereby lay the basis for sustained growth.
IMF identified that promoting good governance in all its aspects, including ensuring the rule of law, improving the efficiency and accountability of the public sector, and tackling corruption are essential elements of a framework within which economies can prosper. In 1997, the IMF adopted a policy on how to address economic governance, embodied in the Guidance Note “The Role of the IMF in Governance Issues”. To further strengthen the implementation of this policy, the IMF adopted in 2018 a new Framework for Enhanced Engagement on Governance (Governance Policy) that aims to promote more systematic, effective, candid, and even handed engagement with member countries regarding governance vulnerabilities—including corruption—that are critical to macroeconomic performance. Under this policy and framework, IMF offers to undertake Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment (GCDA) with member countries to analyse and recommend actions for addressing corruption vulnerabilities and strengthening integrity and governance in IMF member countries. Following the analysis, GCDAs prioritise and sequence recommendations for systematically addressing the vulnerabilities. Since 2018, twenty GCDA Reports were finalised and include Sri Lanka, Mauritania, Cameroon, Zambia, and Benin. Ten Diagnostics are ongoing, and several are under consideration by IMF.
So, similarly under the EFF 2024 programme, there is a structural benchmark that with IMF capacity development support, Government of Pakistan will undertake a GCD Assessment to analyse critical governance and corruption vulnerabilities and identify priority structural reforms moving forward. This GCDA report will be published. The GCDA report will recommend actions for addressing corruption vulnerabilities and strengthening integrity and governance, which will assist the govt in bringing about reforms for promoting transparency, strengthening institutional capacities and achieving inclusive and sustainable economic growth. The spokesperson appreciated the technical support of IMF in this regard.
