Global lenders have money to fund wars but not cash-strapped Pakistan: PM Shehbaz Sharif

Global lenders have billions to fund wars but not cash-strapped Pakistan, said Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif while addressing the two-day Global Financing Pact Summit in Paris.

“Global lenders would spend billions on war but only offer loans to flood-ravaged Pakistan,” the PM said.

“On one hand, you are ready to provide everything for the defence of a country or countries — that is perfectly okay — but when it comes to the question of saving thousands and thousands of people from dying, then [one has] to borrow money at a very high cost.

Then you have to â€æ beg and borrow and further deteriorate your already very precarious financial situation,” Shehbaz Sharif said.

Referring to the flood of last year that devastated Pakistan, the PM said, “We had to cough up hundreds of millions of dollars from our own pocket with our scarce resources.”

The Global Financing Pact Summit is being held in Paris to chalk out a consensus on international economic reforms to help debt-burdened developing countries face a growing onslaught of challenges, particularly climate change.

During the summit, Pakistan PM Shehbaz met world leaders, such as Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Egypt President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, separately.

Shehbaz Sharif also met International Monetary Fund (IMF) MD Kristalina Georgieva in Paris on Thursday in what is being considered a last-ditch effort for the release of halted funds ahead of the credit line’s expiry next week.

Shehbaz Sharif has made yet another appeal to the IMF to release the $1.1bn tranche, pending since November last year, as the $6.5bn loan programme nears its scheduled expiry at the end of June.

The Paris pitch came amid claims back home that Shehbaz’s finance minister Ishaq Dar slapped a reporter who asked him questions about the stalled funds.