The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is likely to ask Pakistan about the initiatives, increasing 10 per cent salary as well as pension of government employees, announced by the elected Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
Sources said that the annual impact of increasing the 10 per cent salary of government officials is Rs25 billion and if the government keeps this to the extent till June this year then the impact would be around Rs1.50 billion.
It is pertinent to mention here that the total number of government employees including Army personnel is more than 1.2 million.
Sources said that the government can make cuts in the Public Sector Development program in the last quarter otherwise the above-mentioned measures would increase the fiscal deficit.
Meanwhile, PML-N leader Miftah Ismail tweeted that “to all my industrialist and exporter friends worried about their wage bill increasing due to PM Shahbaz Sharif’s increasing the minimum wage, remember just in two days your market cap has gone up by 5.4 per cent and the government is here to help you export, grow and earn more.
It is pertinent to mention here that IMF had also raised questions over the amnesty scheme announced by former PM Imran Khan on February 28, 2022, due to which the seventh review of Pakistan’s economy is still pending.
