PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif Thursday said that the skyrocketing inflation had broken the back the masses in the last three years, reported 24News HD TV channel.
Addressing a pre-budget seminar organized by PML-N, Shehbaz Sharif said that the worst performance of PTI was the cause of the current situation. He said the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) had not confirmed the economic statistics presented by the government which left a big question mark. He said that the ‘fake’ government knew the art of manipulation. He said the mini-budget presented by the government in the past was also in front of everyone. He further said that the unemployment in the country had increased and the progress on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project (CPEC) had slowed down. He said, “We would have appreciated if the government had done a good job.”
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi claimed that during the incumbent government’s three-year tenure, five million people have become unemployed. He said the PTI-led government had pushed 20 million people into poverty and had heavily burdened people by increasing the price of electricity by more than 62 percent. He claimed that the PML-N had taken 20 million people out of poverty when it was in power.
Abbasi said the country’s biggest issue was circular debt. He said the people were given the gift of inflation through a stolen election.
On the occasion, former finance minister Miftah Ismail said the current regime had increased the loans of the government and state institutions by Rs45,000 billion.
He claimed that PM Imran Khan even took food for "langar" as part of its feeding the poor initiative from Saylani, an NGO. He said the fiscal deficit during Imran Khan’s tenure in 2019 stood at Rs3,829 billion, while it moved up to Rs3,892 billion in 2020. “We were expecting a 6% increase in Pakistan's GDP as the government had taken loans worth Rs15,000 billion,” the former finance minister said, adding that the government, despite procuring such massive loans, was still predicting a GDP growth of 4 percent.
The former finance minister said if FBR had crossed the Rs4,500 billion mark it was not a great achievement for PTI.
Muhammad Zubair said four people had held the finance ministry’s portfolio during PTI’s tenure. He questioned, “Where are those 200 people who claimed they could fix the economy?”
Former interior minister Ahsan Iqbal said PML-N had approved development projects for Chilas and, Mirpur, and Muzaffarabad in 2016, but even after five years, PTI was unable to inaugurate them.”
He said that Imran Khan had not been able to start works on projects like Railway ML1 and Keti Bandar, adding that during the PML-N's tenure, meetings of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor's Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) would occur every six months. However, it had met only two times since PTI came into power.