Pakistan must jump through a few more hurdles before we can unlock our $6.5 bailout with the IMF deemed vital to avert defaulting on external payment obligations. With each passing day, the deal becomes more and more elusive. Pakistan has made tremendous progress recently in securing bilateral financing from various lenders, notably UAE and Saudi Arabia, who made considerable commitments to our cash-strapped economy. But the IMF isn’t convinced just yet. Perhaps they’re still deliberating the implications of Mr Sharif’s patrol subsidy or our track record of dishonouring our responsibilities has them feeling sceptical. Either way, we are now entering our sixth month of negotiations and the economy is teetering closer and closer to a full-blown recession. Pakistan is the only South-Asian country that is yet to secure a bailout from the multilateral lender. Even Sri Lanka secured financing late last month; leaving us to wonder what more can be done to assuage the IMF. This is not the first time petrol subsidies have been a sticking point for the IMF. The previous government, led by Imran Khan, has already stalled the bailout once by handing out subsidies at the worst possible time. It would appear that we are destined to repeat our mistakes over and over. It isn’t just the petrol subsidy that irks the IMF-they want to make sure we have at least $7 billion to compensate for our colossal balance of payments gap. The government argues that $5 billion should be enough. But perhaps just this once, it might do us some good to heed the IMF’s advice. After all, we have been ignoring their warnings for decades, borrowing more than we can give back and naively hoping that everything will be fine regardless of our negligence. Needless to say, things couldn’t possibly be further from fine-our projected growth output for the year was recently slashed from six per cent to a meagre 0.2 per cent. We had to have known that our incompetence over the years would culminate in a situation like this. The IMF is our last hope at setting the record straight at doing better in the future, and the uncomfortable truth is that there are no alternatives. *