Miscommunication caused Dollar prices hike, inquiry to fix responsibility: Dar

ISLAMABAD, July 6 (APP): Finance Minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar said Thursday that a thorough and transparent investigation would be
conducted into the dollar price hike matter, which he said was
result of a miscommunication and misunderstanding among some
individuals and institutions.
The Minister was talking to media persons after chairing a
meeting of over two dozen heads of banks, Deputy Governor State Bank
of Pakistan (SBP), Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and other
senior officials of the Ministry of Finance to discuss this
unfortunate development.
Dar said that this was a unique incident or accident of its
type in the country’s history.
The minister said that after the appointment of governor SBP,
likely by tomorrow, the transparent inquiry would be carried out by
competent and honest man of integrity to fix responsibility in this
issue of national importance.
He said that the inquiry might be completed in 10 days and
action would be taken against the individual(s) responsible.
All transactions conducted during this time would be assessed
to determine that who were the losers and gainers.
He said that not any person including himself has any
authority to take such important decision related to economy (in
this case artificially adjust of the dollar’s value) as there was
proper mechanism to take such decisions.
He deplored that even the Deputy SBP governor was not informed
about this important decision by certain individuals.
Dar said that there was no reason for this surprising and
artificial hike as market was working in routine, the forex reserves
stood at $21 billion and forex market was also stable.
He expressed the hope that market would soon stabilize itself
and determine the value of currency adding that nobody could direct
the market to overcome issue of under valuation.
Dar said that the market has made self-correction as depicted
by the dollar exchange of Thursday morning.
Earlier, the minister Wednesday had taken serious notice of
the spike in the interbank rates of the US dollar versus the
Pakistani Rupee and had expressed deep concern, indignation and
disappointment at the fact that the current political situation was
being exploited by certain individuals, banks and entities,
resulting in the artificial hike.