(Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. Learn to take a joke; you’ll live longer.)
ISLAMABAD/UDAIPUR – Pakistan government has opened talks with the Ambani Marriage Fund (AMF) for emergency financial assistance to ease a mounting balance of payments crisis, the finance ministry said on Thursday.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has spent four months looking for means to ease the financial crisis, including borrowing money and governance models from friendly countries, as the government looks for alternatives to a second International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout in five years. Strict IMF’s conditions, including its rigid demand that Pakistan actually pay back the money that the state would borrow, have forced Islamabad to look elsewhere, with the AMF now coming up as the latest option.
Following events in the region this week, which have raised economic bars and prompted US politicians like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to take note and participate, the finance ministry on Wednesday decided that the finance minister should meet with the Ambani family.
“Yesterday, it was decided that we should start talks with AMF,” Finance Minister Asad Umar told The Dependent. “And it’s the next day and I keep getting messages from Mukesh Ambani through other people to hurry up and announce the package”.
Umar revealed that the urgency on Ambani’s part is owing to the volume of the bailout package. “This is biggest Ambani investment in Pakistan’s history,” he revealed.
