Pakistan has already bankrupt, the country's defence minister Khawaja Asif said today amid looming fears that the cash-strapped nation may not be able to get a $7 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
During a public address in his hometown Sialkot, Mr Asif said that Pakistan has already defaulted and blamed the politicians and bureaucracy for the economic crisis in the country.
"You must have heard that Pakistan is going bankrupt or that a default or meltdown is taking place. It (default) has already taken place. We are living in a bankrupt country," he was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune newspaper.
"The solution to our problems lies within the country," Mr Asif said. The Pak minister added that the IMF does not have the solution to the country's problems.
He said that everyone — including the establishment, bureaucracy and politicians — are to blame for the current economic mess as the law and Constitution are not followed in Pakistan.
The minister said that most of his time had been spent in the opposition camp and that he has witnessed politics being disgraced for the past 32 years.
The remarks come at a time when the country is battling decades-high inflation, critically low foreign exchange reserves and several debt repayment obligations. Some of Pakistan's biggest companies have halted operations in the past months as they ran out of raw materials or foreign exchange, or both.
Pakistan's $3.19 billion in foreign currency reserves mean that the nation is unable to fund imports, stranding thousands of containers of supplies on its ports and stalling production, putting jobs at risk. An inflation that's also at the fastest in almost half a century is putting many goods out of the public's reach.
