The PTI has consented to the International Monetary Fund programme “till the election time”, PTI’s Muzzammil Aslam said on Monday.

“We said that it is a bridge programme, so a new government elected after free and fair polls will apply a strict programme than the current one to address the structural issues of Pakistan,” he said at Munizae Jahangir’s show Spot Light on Aaj News. “It will be possible only when there is a government with political mandate.”

Aslam said that the IMF team met the PTI chairman on Friday, June 7, however, it was holding dialogues with the PTI’s finance team for four days before the meeting took place.

PPP’s Saleem Mandviwalla said that the IMF wanted assurance from the political parties that the implementation of the policies regarding the programme would continue.

“The IMF is not doing it for the first time. When our government was nearing its end, they [IMF] asked for the PML-N’s assurance regarding the programme. The IMF takes consent from major political parties who may form government in future,” he added.

Madviwalla was of the view that the broadening of the tax base was a big challenge for the country as the IMF states that Pakistan’s tax net has not been expanded to “double-digit figures”.

Coordinator to Prime Minister of Commerce and Industries Rana Ihsan Afzal said that the meeting of the IMF team with political parties was a normal exercise.

“Three governments will walk through this programme in the next nine months as our government’s tenure is ending in August and a caretaker government will come for a quarter and after that, a new government will be elected,” he added.

Afzal said that the IMF’s meeting with the PTI was not a significant event as it is portraying that the meeting is “pointing to something”.

Economist Farhan Bukhari said that the IMF programme was not enough to provide long-term stability to the rupee as Pakistan heavily relies on imports.

“We saw the sudden recovery of the rupee after the staff-level agreement with the IMF, but now it is back on a downward trend. It is because the government committed to allow clearing of around $7 billion imported material stuck at the Karachi Port,” he added.

For a strong rupee, there was a need for several reforms including boosting exports and manufacturing products rather than importing them, he said, adding that Pakistan imports agri products which it should not import.

For Bukhari, the economic issues of the country will take years to resolve as the economy has been “deteriorating for the last 35 years”.