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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan barred from spending World Bank funds on military |
| 2007-07-24 |
| Islamabad, July 24: Pakistan has been barred from meeting its military expenditures through World Bank's budgetary support, after the global lender included such spendings into its negative list. "World Bank's budgetary support for Pakistan cannot be utilised for military expenditures as it falls in the negative list for the country's operation," The News reported on Tuesday, quoting a bank's official without naming him. The World Bank has so far been the largest provider of development assistance finance to the Islamic nation but according to sources, "it has recently expressed concern over the Pakistani government diverting portions of loans to meet military spendings". Pakistan has increased its defence budget to USD 4.5 billion for the Fiscal Year 2007-08 up by nearly ten per cent from the current financial year. "Separate allocations would be made for the purchase of 'Thunder' aircraft from China and 'F-16' multi-role fighter jets from the United States," the Dawn had earlier reported, quoting sources. In order to get rid of the financial woes, the World Bank official said, "Provinces are used to pay off expensive loans to the federal government after receiving loans from the International Development Association (IDA) assistance". "The World Bank's assistance mainly relies on budgetary support rather than programme loans, as the bank considers this approach as good instrument for moving towards the whole reform agenda in a coherent manner." |
| Posted by:John Frum |
| #4 Nope, Fred and Rambler you are wrong here. Pakiwakis don't HAVE $4.5B in their non-military accounts to MOVE!! |
| Posted by: AlanC 2007-07-24 13:01 |
| #3 Fred, luckily the WB anticipated that. They gave the money in specially marked $100 bills. That way, they can tell if the marked bills show up in a defense contractor's account. |
| Posted by: Rambler 2007-07-24 09:37 |
| #2 The WB seems to be using the special non-fungible money again. That way the Paks won't be able to move 4.5 billion out of general funding and into the military account, and replace it with the WB's 4.5 billion. |
| Posted by: Fred 2007-07-24 09:23 |
| #1 Note to Pakistan: "Development Aid" loans are meant to build roads, dams, hospitals, schools etc. Warplanes and artillery guns are not considered "development" in the civilized world. |
| Posted by: John Frum 2007-07-24 07:59 |