Reports of petroleum levy being 'central point' in IMF programme are 'misleading': finance ministry

The finance ministry issued a rebuttal on Tuesday, saying that reports of the petrol development levy (PDL) being a “central point” of Pakistan’s ongoing programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were “misleading”. The programme includes a $7 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and a $1. 1bn Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF). On Tuesday, an Express Tribune report said the “finance ministry had made petroleum levy the central point of the programme, although there is no explicit condition in the IMF document about the rate of the levy. As a result, the government has managed to improve fiscal numbers but it fueled inflation, unemployment, poverty and low economic growth”.

The finance ministry, referring to the report in a statement, termed the assertions “misleading” and said the programme’s fiscal strategy was “substantially broader and revolves around FBR revenue mobilisation, expansion of tax base, provincial taxation, expenditure rationalisation etc”. For FY27, the ministry said, the programme specifically emphasised additional revenue mobilisation and strengthening FBR performance rather than relying solely on petroleum taxation. “PDL is one of the revenue instruments and describing it as center piece of program materially overstates its role,” the ministry said. It also argued that the assertion of there being “no IMF conditionality relating to petroleum levy pricing” was “technically narrow and potentially misleading”. “While the programme does not prescribe a single permanent headline PDL rate in the manner suggested, published programme documents contain explicit details concerning petroleum pricing and levies. These include alignment of domestic fuel prices with international prices through regular adjustments. The RSF also included a…