EDITORIAL: On 21 January 2026, a private member’s bill titled ‘Elections (Amendment) Bill’ submitted by Member of National Assembly Shazia Marri was passed by parliament. It allowed the Speaker of the National Assembly/Chairman Senate to make a ruling after receiving a written request by a parliamentarian not to make his/her statement of assets and liabilities public if such a publication posed a serious threat to his/her life and safety of a family member for a period not exceeding one year at a time though a complete and true statement of assets and liabilities would be submitted to the Election Commission of Pakistan. And on 5 March 2026 on another private member’s bill tabled by Shazia Marri and Naveed Qamar parliament passed a bill titled ‘National Accountability (Amendment) Act’ that granted a three-year extension in the term of the Chairman NAB (National Accountability Bureau) that allowed the incumbent an extension till March 2029 – an amendment that appeared for all intents and purposes to be person-specific. Reports suggest that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) queried these amendments during the ongoing third mandatory review under the USD 7 billion Extended Fund Facility programme. It is relevant to note that the passage of these two amendments post-dates the release of the Governance and Corruption Diagnostic (GCD) report in November 2025, conducted by an interdepartmental IMF team joined by experts from the World Bank, was a structural benchmark. CGD notes that Pakistan’s Right to Information system has “a legal foundation, but its practice has yet to substantially deliver on its intended transparency outcomes.” It then provided details sourced to the Information Commission of some entities that failed to deliver on requests for information for the years 2022 to 2024: Capital Development Authority (21 under process with 68 closed), NADRA (20 under process and 60 closed), Ministry of Interior (26 under process and 40 closed), Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (21 under process and 38 closed), Federal Investigation Agency (15 under process and 43 closed), Federal Board of Revenue (23 under process and 31 closed) and National Assembly (16 under process and 30 closed). The report further noted that it was confined to federal government operations and recommended such an exercise be carried out in the provinces as well. Another finding of the GCD that surprises no one was as follows: “Corruption is a persistent challenge in Pakistan, with significant adverse implications for economic development. Indicators reflect weak control of corruption over time with negative consequences for public spending effectiveness, revenue collection, and trust in the legal system. While corruption vulnerabilities are present at all levels of government, the most economically damaging manifestations involve privileged entities that exert influence over key economic sectors, including those owned by or affiliated with the state. These dynamics are compounded by perceptions that the anticorruption approach has lacked consistency and impartiality, contributing to diminished public confidence in enforcement institutions.” Failure to satisfy the Fund staff would delay a staff-level agreement on the third review which is a prerequisite for Board approval for the release of the subsequent tranche. At present, Pakistan is completely reliant on an active Fund programme for not only securing rollovers of over USD 12 billion from the three friendly countries (Saudi Arabia, China and the United Arab Emirates) but also from other multilaterals. Failure to secure these loans would deplete the USD 16.3 billion reserves currently held by the State Bank of Pakistan as of 27 February 2026, pushing the country towards default. It is, therefore, critical for the government to not only take members of parliament on board with respect to IMF conditions but also members of the cabinet, given that federal ministers voted in favour of these two bills, including the Deputy Prime Minister and the Law Minister. Copyright Business Recorder, 2026