The government has postponed a scheduled meeting of the Monetary and Fiscal Policies Coordination Board due to the unavailability of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Dr Reza Baqir.
According to local media reports, the statutory meeting had been called to review the impact of monetary policy on investment, economic growth, balance of payments and the country’s international trade.
It may be mentioned here that the government has proposed sweeping changes to the central bank law, which has invited criticism from all sections of society.
The draft of the proposed SBP Amendment Bill 2021 shows that the government will abolish the Monetary and Fiscal Policies Coordination Board, which will end a 27-year-old institutional arrangement to align monetary policies with the country’s economic and fiscal policies.
The coordination board shall coordinate fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policies and ensure consistency in the macroeconomic targets for growth, inflation, fiscal, monetary and external accounts, reads Section 9B(2), which is now proposed to be omitted from the law.
On March 27, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari maintained that the PPP also wants SBP to be independent and to make decisions that are in the interest of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan independently. “However, the ordinance doesn’t make the SBP independent, it makes it independent from Pakistan’s law, it makes it independent from the parliamentary and judicial oversight,” he added.
He demanded the government to withdraw the ordinance immediately.
