Imran on Saudi visit, arrives in UAE today
DIRECTION SET IN FOREIGN POLICY, EDUCATION AND HEALTH
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will arrive in Abu Dhabi today after an official visit to Saudi Arabia.
Imran, who arrived in Madinah on his first international visit since taking office last month, was accompanied by Finance Minister Asad Umar and Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi at a time when the country is trying to avert a balance of currency crisis stemming from a large current account deficit.
Analysts say a fresh bailout package from the International Monetary Fund, which would be its 13th since late 1980s, is inevitable.
But Umar recently said an IMF rescue was a “fallback option” and that the government was exploring other avenues for assistance, which was broadly interpreted as Islamabad seeking help from China and Saudi Arabia, both of which have provided vast loans in the past.
“The Prime Minister will call on His Majesty King Salman and hold a bilateral meeting with the Crown Prince,” Foreign Office said in a statement. “The two leaders will discuss issues of bilateral interest.” In 2014, six months after Pakistan obtained its last IMF bailout, Saudi Arabia loaned Pakistan $1.5 billion, which the government used to strengthen its rupee currency.
The performance of the Pakistan Tehreeke-Insaf (PTI) government in its first month in office can be summed up in one word: reforms.
Over the past month, Prime Minister Imran Khan has already initiated a massive reforms programme across the country doing away with discretionary funds and cutting non-development expenditures drastically.
During a meeting of the federal cabinet last month, the prime minister constituted six task force teams to suggest steps for implementation of the government’s 100-day plan of ‘change’ and introduce reforms in different sectors, including civil services and the local government system. Gulf News approached experts and sought their opinion of how the government is faring.
Overhaul
For the first time in decades they think the government is acting like a custodian of each penny collected from them in taxes. Education, health care and social welfare sectors are being overhauled.
In Punjab, the PTI government’s provincial health minister Dr Yasmin Rashid has launched a public health insurance programme through which Rs0.5 million in health cards will be issued to the poor throughout the province.
At the federal level too, the government is planning to set up four state-of-the-art hospitals in the federal capital and PC-I of the project will soon be initiated.
However, besides these morale-boosting steps taken by the new government within a period of 30 days, there are some fundamental questions the government is yet to answer.