Federal Information Minister Senator Shibli Faraz has claimed that former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was an ‘Aristotle of the economy’ who has put the country into a difficult situation by signing an expensive LNG deal and he also helped former finance minister Ishaq Dar escape from Pakistan in his private jet.

Addressing a news conference at PID in Islamabad on Sunday, Shibli Faraz said, “PML-N leadership has increased their wealth and made the country poor and Pakistan's problems are due to Nawaz Sharif.” Shibli Faraz said renewable energy projects were treated like ‘stepmother’ while the previous government inked expensive agreements with foreign companies, resulting in high electricity and gas rates for the countrymen.

Criticising Ishaq Dar, Faraz said, “The PML-N government wasted 23 billion dollars to control its rate artificially.”

He said, “You want to disrupt the government’s affairs just because you know it very well that if this government becomes successful then there will be no chance for the opposition.”

“Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leadership is misleading the common people by pursuing a narrative which has nothing to do with reality and they have done nothing for the country, except pursuing anti-people policies,” the minister maintained.

Shibli Faraz alleged that PML-N deliberately destroyed the country's economy to create hurdles in the way of the incoming government. The PTI government inherited a current account deficit of $20 billion and a debt of Rs30 trillion while Rs2.9 trillion were reserved in the budget to just pay interest on the loans taken by the previous regimes.

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The Information Minister said the government’s focus is on finding the new gas reserves. “Our intent was right and that was the reason the PTI government was able to take the country’s economy back on the track. Our government has also given up luxury lifestyle,” Shibli Faraz said. He added that Pakistan's exports and country’s remittances have also increased.

“The government has collected taxes worth more than one trillion rupees which are more than the actual target and POL prices are linked with the global prices and the main reason for the high cost of electricity are those agreements which the Nawaz Sharif government signed with IPPs,” he further said.

Shibli Faraz said due to continuous efforts of Prime Minister Imran Khan foreign exchange reserves have reached $19 billion while current account deficit has come down from $20 billion to $80 million.