Holding the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) partly responsible for the gloomy economic situation, the Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) on Sunday said the Central Bank had failed to show correct picture of economy in its recently released annual report.
PEW President Dr Murtaza Mughal said political interference and attitude of the central bankers to please the government while misleading eth people had left the apex bank untrustworthy and ineffective.
He said the SBP was no more regarded a good regulator, rather it had become an efficient machine to print as much currency as required by the politicians to finance their luxuries.
“A report based on assumptions, optimism and assurances will not help the government, the masses and the nervous investors in any way but it will further dent the reputation of the bank and country,” he added.
Mughal said the SBP should have admitted its failures and reported that the year 2012 added to the miseries of the masses while there was no hope of betterment in the current year as the government and the opposition did not want to implement reforms.
“The SBP seems overconfident about certain things including payment of Coalition Support Fund, receiving outstanding money from Etisalat, raising revenue from sale of 3G licences and hike in remittances which can be best described as assumptions.”
He said it remained overoptimistic on many other fronts despite rapidly deteriorating economic indicators and sluggish investment while the government had so far avoided serious effort to negotiate a loan with the IMF which amounts to keeping masses in the dark.
Failure of the SBP to resist or at least express displeasure over violation of borrowing limits by the government had remained a big obstacle in revenue mobilisation and curtailing unnecessary expanses.
Expressing concern over unsustainable fiscal deficit, Mughal said all efforts to revive the economy would fail as the government’s total expenditures exceeded the revenue that it generated which left it only with the option to borrow.
SBP yearly report a worthless document: PEW
