President Arif Alvi has summoned a National Assembly session for today (Monday), NA secretariat’s directorate general of media informed on Sunday.
According to the communique, the session will take place at the Parliament House at 4pm.
The president summoned the session as per section 1 of Article 54 of the constitution. This will be the NA’s third and the ninth session of the third parliamentary year, during the incumbent government’s tenure. The session would deliberate upon the matter of giving “absolute autonomy” to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
The issue of making the SBP more independent of the federal government has given rise to a lot of debate that primarily aims at targeting inflation rather than the economic growth. Since greater autonomy for the SBP was one of the preconditions of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for releasing tranches of its $6 billion loan, many have raised fears about its long-term impact not only on the economy but also on the country’s overall sovereignty.
The important changes for the autonomy are giving up the government’s right to borrow from the central bank to keep a check on deficit financing done through printing new money, extending the tenure of the SBP governor from three to five years (renewable for another term) to minimise political interference and also bring it closer to international practice, and providing immunity to SBP officials for decisions taken in good faith.
