Help needed after heavy floods: Bilawal

KARACHI, August 29 (SABAH): Pakistan needs financial help to deal with “overwhelming” floods, Foreign MinisterBilawal Bhutto said on Sunday, adding he hoped financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would take the economic fallout into account.

Unusually heavy monsoon rains have caused devastating floods in both the north and south of the country, affecting more than 30 million people and killing more than 1,000.

“I haven’t seen the destruction of this scale, I find it very difficult to put into words it is overwhelming,” said Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari in an interview with media.

The nation was already in an economic crisis, facing high inflation, a depreciating currency and a current account deficit, he said.

The IMF board will decide this week on whether to release $1.2 billion as part of the seventh and eighth tranches of Pakistan’s bailout programme, which it entered in 2019.

Bhutto-Zardari said the board was expected to approve the release given an agreement between Pakistani officials and IMF staff had already been reached and he hoped in coming months the IMF would recognise the impact of the floods.

“Going forward, I would expect not only the IMF, but the international community and international agencies to truly grasp the level of devastation,” he said.