IMF aid: no point whining : Dr Meekal Aziz Ahmed

I am not singling out Meekal Ahmed. Am using his thoughts as representative of all other well meaning commentators. Which brings me to the Hamid Mir drama with Shaukat Tareen of plan a-z fame, where Mir managed to wrangle out some numbers from Tareen. (some 6-8 billion immediately and 8-12 in the next 12-18 months if memory serves.)

Which in turn brings me to this: if Asif Zardari and the brothers Sharipov bring in their (alleged) wealth (11 billion for Godlie and 13 for Sharipovs) then we could throw away the kashkol
(begging bowl) and merrily sing jeeway, jeeway Pakistan.

Mr Tareen's plan a, b, and c finally seems to have ended up as plan f with the IMF, something most observers could have told him a long time ago would happen. No donor, multilateral or bilateral, and no friend, will commit to giving Pakistan money without a clearly articulated programme of some sort. I don't know why that was so difficult to understand. Hopefully donors will come forward now because an IMF programme has to be "fully financed" before it can be presented to the executive board of the organisation for approval. The commitments have to be there, and they have to be firm commitments. There can be no "financing gap."