Islamabad, Apr 5 (UNI) The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has sent a second anti-graft team to Pakistan to assess corruption, money laundering, governance, expenditure, and has recommend improvements.

This second batch of the Corruption and Governance Diagnostic Mission, which began on April 4 will continue until April 14. The visit involves in-depth meetings with more than 30 government departments and institutions, including the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s registrar and the accountability court, the Express Tribune reported.

This mission marks the second such visit by the IMF in just a few months, following up on their February visit. Some of its key areas of focus include price controls, particularly practices in the sugar industry and construction sectors.

For this purpose, the IMF team will meet with the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) to discuss ongoing investigations into price manipulation, a matter that has seen the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) impose fines on the association for billions of rupees for price manipulation and cartelisation.

So far, the mission has held meetings with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in Karachi, discussing banking sector regulations, suspicious transactions, and money laundering issues, according to central bank authorities.

During its visit in February, the anti-graft team had also met with Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Yahya Afridi to discuss judicial appointments and other legal matters.

As per sources, this time the IMF mission will meet with the registrar of the SCP to discuss judicial efficiency and accountability of judges, and is expected to get updates on the judicial handling of these cases.

Apart from its engagements with the 30 departments on its radar, the IMF mission will also meet with the anti-corruption authorities of Punjab, Sindh, and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. These include the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), SBP, and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), and discuss financial sector oversight, including anti-money laundering efforts, procurement-related corruption, financial regulator integrity, and efforts to strengthen legal protections for financial institutions.

The mission will also discuss amendments to the Pakistan Sovereign Wealth Act, which was part of the last IMF programme review mission, sources told the newspaper. The IMF has also included issues related to budget execution, treasury single accounts, and debt management in a mission that mostly deals with legal matters within the IMF.

Another key area of the mission is Pakistan’s Right to Access to Information which remains extremely weak due to deliberate withholding of information by the government from taxpayers. The anti-graft mission will recommend improvements in this area and prepare a final report based on its findings, which Pakistan is required to publish by the end of July or August.



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