A nearly $4.5 billion hole in Pakistan’s external financing plan and its budget may also overshoot by another Rs1 trillion due to the understatement of debt expenditures, which may become a serious issue during the first review of the International Monetary Fund programme.
Both the problems of about a $4.5 billion financing gap and approximately Rs1 trillion less allocations for interest payments for the fiscal year 2023-24 result from unrealistic budgetary estimates, sources in the Ministry of Finance said.
They added that several meetings took place in recent days to resolve these issues.
If they remained unaddressed, there might be problems during the first review of the $3 billion IMF programme in November this year.
The sources said that against the budget estimates of over $20 billion, there were concerns that at least $4.4 billion in foreign loans might not materialise. This was flagged at the highest level in the finance ministry. After that, a series of meetings began between the Economic Affairs Division and Finance Division to bridge the gap.