PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has hammered the government over its deal with the International Monetary Fund saying that it will economically strain the people, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.
Taking the floor in the National Assembly on Wednesday, Bilawal Bhutto discarded the government’s deal with the IMF. He said it would economically crush the people. He was of the view if the advice of former president Asif Ali Zardari was heeded, the situation would not have been so worse.
He blamed the government for selling the economic sovereignty of Pakistan to the global lenders. He held that Prime Minister Imran Khan’s ‘tsunami’ means ‘tsunami of poverty, unemployment and inflation.
Bilawal said that people would not forgive this government for inflicting economic miseries on them. “They will take you to the task for doing all this to them,” he warned the rulers.
He objected imposition of taxes on laptops and stationers, shaming the government that Shehbaz Sharif used to distribute free laptops among students.
He deplored that government was going to make everything expensive including petrol, bicycle, sewing machines, laptop, mobile phones and internet. He said the government did not stop here, it levied taxes on locally produced electronic articles.
He sarcastically said the government had stirred a deluge, rather tsunami, of taxes in the country.
He said farmers too were fed up with this government which was economically murdering them. He said on one hand, the government was bringing mini-budget while on the other, it was raising the price of urea. He deplored that Pakistan used to be an agricultural country, but this government had ruined the country’s economy in every budget.
He was of the opinion that mini-budget would give way to another spate of inflation in the country. He said the government was going to increase 100% rate of taxes on vehicles.
“It is raising 100% tax rate on a car having engine capacity of 1000cc. Poor people purchase small cars after saving money. But the government is also hiking tax on it,” he added.
He said Pakistan’s economy had never shown negative indicators before even when the country was broken into two in 1971.
The PPP chairman lamented that on every national tragedy, the government just got vanished from the scene. The government was nowhere to be seen during the Murree and Balochistan tragedies, he added.
Bilawal said instead of bringing about change, the rulers had brought about destruction due to their wrong decisions. “New Pakistan means inflation, unemployment and poverty,” he reiterated. He said this government was hell bent on showing enmity towards its people and country.
The PPP chairman bemoaned that the government had levied tax on the population planning material adding that it did not even spare babies’ milk.
He appreciated the Sindh government which raised the minimum wages up to Rs25,000. He urged the Supreme Court to take back the public money from those who put it in speculation business. He said today, growers were protesting and country was facing gas, sugar, petrol and flour crises. He deplored that due to non-availability of gas, people could not brew tea nor could they take hot shower.
He said the government was claiming that there was bumper production of urea in the country. But the urea scarcity is threatening the standing crops of growers, he added.
Bilawal mocked that the government itself was creating crisis as its prime minister himself said that in every century, a crisis occurs.
“The name of the crisis of this century is coronavirus. But in truth Imran Khan is the name of crisis of this century,” he uttered.
Soon after Bilawal's speech, Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly stood up and commended the PPP chairman for delivering an excellent speech in the House.