LAHORE: Chairman of the FPCCI’s Businessmen Panel (BMP), Mian Anjum Nisar, has reacted strongly to the IMF’s governance and corruption diagnostic report, terming it “an alarming charge-sheet against Pakistan’s governance system” after revelations of Rs5.3 trillion in irregularities. He said the business community was shocked not only by the magnitude of leakages but also by the institutional weaknesses highlighted by the IMF.
At the same time, he said the economic improvement Pakistan has witnessed in recent months—especially in exports, small entrepreneurship and workplace productivity—has been “largely driven by women’s increased participation in the economy,” emphasising that Pakistan must now supplement this progress through deep, long-term structural reforms.
Commenting on the report, Mian Anjum Nisar said the IMF’s findings were “a wake-up call” for the government and policymakers. Instead of treating the report as criticism from a foreign lender, he said, the government should view it as “professional, evidence-based feedback” pointing to long-standing structural weaknesses in governance, oversight, procurement and public-sector management. The scale of governance failures, he said, clearly explains why Pakistan’s fiscal space collapses repeatedly and why the economy remains trapped in cycles of crisis, bailouts and emergency measures.
He said the IMF report has, for the first time in years, quantified leakages and inefficiencies with unprecedented clarity, documenting weak institutional controls, slow judicial processes, outdated audit functions, delays in accountability, and the absence of transparent procurement systems. According to him, these are issues the business community has been highlighting for a decade, urging successive governments to stop financial bleeding in public entities, reform procurement laws, digitise federal and provincial departments, and eliminate rent-seeking loopholes. “If Pakistan wants economic sovereignty, it must fix governance,” he said.
Mian Anjum Nisar urged the government to announce integrated national economic reforms agenda aligned with the IMF’s key recommendations. He said Pakistan cannot progress until there is unified political commitment to transparency, accountability and institution-building. Short-term administrative steps, he emphasised, no longer hold value. “The IMF has highlighted systemic failures. Therefore, solutions must also be systemic. Cosmetic actions cannot rescue an economy of 250 million people,” he said.
He proposed establishing a National Economic Governance Council—comprising federal and provincial representatives, economists, private-sector leaders, former finance secretaries and regulatory experts—to monitor reform implementation for the next five years. With political transitions frequent and policy directions changing abruptly, he said Pakistan must create institutional mechanisms that ensure policy continuity beyond governments’ tenure cycles.
The BMP chairman said comprehensive digitalisation of economic governance remains the single strongest tool against corruption. He noted that globally successful economies are distinguished by transparency through automation, and Pakistan must learn from this. “End-to-end digital monitoring—from procurement to payment—can drastically cut leakages and raise revenues,” he said, urging the government to digitalise tax administration, customs management, PSDP execution, subsidy distribution, utility billing and budgeting processes. He said BMP has long pushed for real-time fiscal dashboards, track-and-trace systems and e-governance platforms, and the IMF report now reinforces the urgency of adopting these reforms without delay.
Discussing public-sector enterprises, he said loss-making PSEs have become a “black hole for taxpayers’ money,” consuming hundreds of billions annually. Pakistan cannot carry this burden any longer. He urged the government to either privatise chronically loss-making entities or introduce corporate governance frameworks under which merit-based professional managers from the private sector can be appointed. “No country can achieve sustainable economic growth while financing dead-weight institutions,” he said.
He also underscored the need for judicial, regulatory and audit reforms. The IMF’s observation regarding judicial delays, particularly in commercial cases, is among the biggest barriers to foreign investment. “Investors avoid environments where contracts cannot be enforced promptly,” he said. Strengthening commercial courts, reducing regulatory overlaps, ensuring professional and depoliticised functioning of accountability bodies, and modernising audit systems, he added, are essential for restoring investor confidence. Pakistan’s ability to attract FDI will remain limited until investors know that property rights, contract enforcement, and tax systems operate with predictability and fairness.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
