Coalition govt saved Pakistan from bankruptcy: Finance Minister
<<Miftah Ismail promises zero loadshedding in next summer>>
Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Miftah Ismail on Saturday said that the incumbent coalition government has saved Pakistan from bankruptcy.
Addressing a press conference, Finance Minister said that irresponsible policies of past four years destroyed the economy but now country is heading towards economic stability.
Criticizing Imran Khan led government, Miftah Ismail said that PTI borrowed 20,000 billion but did not add a single megawatt of electricity to the national grid nor did he constructed even a hospital.
The minister asked PTI to show what Imran Khan did as Prime Minister for coming generations.
Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Finance Miftah Ismail said on Saturday that he promised to the nation that there would be no electricity loadshedding in the country next summer season.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Miftah Ismail said another promise that he was making to the nation was that inflation will also come down by next year.
He said that the policies pursued by the last PTI government were to blame for the country’s present pathetic economic situation.
The minister claimed that the present government had saved the country from ‘default’. “But now the country is heading towards stability,” he added.
He went on to say that the debt increased by Rs20,000 billion during the four-year term of the PTI government. “The last government did not nothing for the country since it was not fit for the job,” he said, adding, “Former prime minister Imran Khan kept assuring the nation that he cared for the welfare of common man, but at the same time prices of items of essential use also kept rising in his tenure.”
The minister said it was unfortunate that the PTI government broke the promises it had made to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “Imran also gave tax relief to his friends,” he alleged.
Pointing towards the super tax introduced in June on big firms’, the finance minister said “I imposed 10% super tax on the prime minister’s sons’ factory”; meanwhile “Imran Khan imposed indirect taxes – a policy he had himself opposed”.
He also said that “we will give interest-free loans of Rs500,000 to the youth” in an effort to empower the largest age group of the Pakistani population.
He also added that the government had “removed tax on all seeds, fertilizer, and tractors” in an effort to ease the pressure on the agriculture sector.
“It takes 500 billion to run the government,” said the finance minister, as he blamed Imran Khan for “destroying the power sector” and noted that “Rs1,350 billion were given as subsidy in the power sector alone”.
Amid gas load-shedding, “a circular debt of Rs1,300 billion was accumulated”. He further said that “neither did Imran Khan reduce transmission losses, nor was there any bill collection”.
“All these factors contributed to why the country went bankrupt,” added the minister.
Miftah Ismail also contended that while Nawaz Sharif’s government’s long-term contracts had been “scandalized”, so much so that “people were sent to jail for them”, “today if the country is running it is because of those agreements”. He also claimed that today there were no long-term agreements for LNG and diesel.