The IMF advocates for anti-corruption measures within governmental agencies.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged Pakistan to mitigate vulnerabilities in the top ten government agencies identified as being at the “highest risk” of engaging in corrupt practices and has also suggested merit-based nominations for leadership positions in important monitoring bodies.

According to government sources, the global lender has proposed the National Accountability Bureau, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, and the Competition Commission of Pakistan for merit-based appointments in its Governance and Corruption Diagnostic Assessment report.

The administration pledged to the IMF to release the report by the conclusion of July and to furnish an action plan for executing its recommendations by the end of October. The report remains unreleased, and this delay is one of the factors impeding the declaration of a staff-level agreement between Pakistan and the IMF about the delivery of further loan tranches.

Sources indicated that the IMF has advised the adoption and implementation of a risk-based strategy to mitigate corruption risks inside federal agencies. The recommendations entail the publication of an action plan to mitigate risks in the ten government bodies exhibiting the highest corruption vulnerabilities and macro-critical exposures, derived from a centralized assessment utilizing pre-established and publicly accessible criteria.