Federal Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin has said that Pakistan is awaiting payment into the Coalition Support Fund from the USA to balance its budget for the current fiscal year. He said this while addressing a press conference to launch National Savings Bonds on Monday. He conceded that the budget deficit could increase if the USA did not release the $1.3 billion it has promised Pakistan before June. This is the money it has promised against total receivables of about $2 billion, which was owed by December. Mr Tarin also said that the budget deficit would be 'very nominal if the Friends of Pakistan were to pay $1.8 billion of what they had promised at the Friends of Pakistan in New York recently. In this way, Mr Tarin admitted to a hole of $3.1 billion, or nearly Rs 200 billion, in the budget, which even the Finance Ministry did not know about. Mr Tarins assurance of a stand-by IMF facility, first revealed during the budgeting process last year, is as little of an assurance as it was then, considering the record the IMF has of destroying economies rather than reviving them. The real problem with the situation was not entirely of American making, because it was Mr Tarins decision to base the entire Budget, and that too in a sensitive year, upon the USA disbursing funds promptly.. However, apart from that, it was also known that the American budget process is such that any promises of money are subject to long delays. This should have been known not just to a bureaucracy that had experienced this during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but to the minister, whose original career had been spent with one of the USAs largest banks. In the present case, the delays in previous payments, and the failure of foreign governments, for domestic political reasons more than anything else, to live up to previous commitments, should have prevented Mr Tarin from depending on foreign funds for its domestic Budget. The government should convey this concern to the never-ending stream of visitors from Washington, the latest example being a congressional delegation headed by US Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Senator Charles Levine. It should be very forthright that it would not be able to help unless the USA was ready to put up the money it promised. By supplying services for deferred payments, Pakistan is not doing anything for dollars, but doing anything for a promise of dollars. The Fund money is being paid to Pakistan for services rendered in the War on Terror, while the FoDP money is also a reward for being on the US side in the War. Pakistan must no longer be fobbed off with mere promises.