The federal government obtained $7.41 billion foreign loans in nine months (from July 2020 to March 2021) including $3.12 billion from the domestic commercial banks, $3.29 billion from foreign countries and international monetary organizations, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Monday.

The amount of $7.41 billion included $1 billion safe deposit loan from China and Rs1.47 billion from Asian Development Bank (ADB), as per the documents available with the TV channel.

The federal government took out a loan of $6.73 billion during the nine months of the last year.

Moreover, the Finance Division has directed all the federal government ministries, divisions, attached departments and subordinate offices to close their accounts with the commercial banks/financial institutions and transfer the balance funds to the federal government’s Single Treasury Account.

Rules have been issued as per the Cash Management and Single Treasury Account 2020 and it has been notified that huge cash amount is in the commercial banks which ought to be in the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

As per the research report, there are Rs1,400 billion of government trust, NGOs, corporate bodies in the commercial banks and government’s deposits make nine percent of the total deposits of commercial banks.

The TV channel reported that the purpose of a Single Treasury Account is to utilize the money easily and on time.

It has been notified that to ensure the financial operations, personal ledger accounts, spell drawing accounts and Revolving Fund Accounts would be closed.

Reporters Waqas Azeem and Ashraf Khan