The World Bank has disconnected negotiations with the economic team of the government for the 500 million-dollar 'emergency package' with the comment that it was not its job to provide any 'emergency package' or 'support' to any country, and if Pakistan needed a special emergency financial support to get some breathing space on the economic front it could approach IMF whenever it wished.
The officials in Islamabad, who were the part of the negotiation team that held a series of talks with World Bank officials in and out of Pakistan for securing 500 million-dollar 'emergency package' during last three months have been found totally upset over the new development. The World Bank's 'no' to Pakistan for special financial support package has been a cause of serious concern to them.
The government economic team is confused as no other option is available with it to explore any other window for having any emergency financial support to offset the pressure on the ailing economy.
Pakistan had made a formal request to the World Bank some three months back for getting from it a $500 million emergency package when 'Finance Minister' Ishaq Dar led a delegation to visit Washington for talks with World Bank and IMF. This was followed by a number of meetings between government officials and World Bank authorities.
Interestingly, the World Bank had set a number of harsh conditionalities for Islamabad to qualify for $500 million special emergency package, and the government had taken a number of measures to meet most of them. These included deletion of subsidies the government was picking up on petroleum products and rising electricity rates out of any proportion for all consumers categories.
The PPP-led government felt level of urgency and wasted no time to pass on major portion of the oil subsidy to the consumers and at the same time revised power tariff more than one time during the last few months. These harsh decisions have brought severe criticism from all quarters of the society but they could not help the government to secure much- needed emergency package from the World Bank.