The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that it appreciates the commitment of the Government of Pakistan to Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment (GCD) and looks forward to continuing collaboration.
An IMF scoping mission, led by Joel Turkewitz, recently visited Islamabad from February 6 to 14, 2025, to lay the groundwork for a Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment (GCD) at the request of the Government of Pakistan, the global lender said in a statement.
The IMF said that the focus of the mission was to preliminarily assess governance and corruption vulnerabilities across six core state functions. These include fiscal governance, central bank governance and operations, financial sector oversight, market regulation, rule of law, and anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML-CFT).
“Over the course of the mission, the IMF team engaged with the Finance Division, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Auditor General of Pakistan, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), and Ministry of Law and Justice, and the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP),” the statement added.
In addition, the IMF team met with a range of other stakeholders, including business associations, civil society organisations, and international development partners.
It further noted that the IMF team for the GCD assessment will return to Pakistan later in this year to continue gathering information and exploring opportunities to strengthen governance and integrity, and economic outcomes in preparation for the eventual assessment.
Pakistan is set to host two more IMF policy-level missions—one to discuss over $1 billion in additional financing for climate resilience and another to review the ongoing $7bn Extended Fund Facility (EFF).
In October last year, Pakistan formally requested about $1bn under the Resilience and Sustainability Trust to address its climate vulnerabilities.
Mahir Binici, the IMF’s resident representative in Islamabad, confirmed that an IMF team will visit in early to mid-March for discussions on the first review of the EFF programme and the RSF request, while a technical team is scheduled for February 24-28 to address issues related to the RSF arrangement.
