Some of the decisions by the federal cabinet on Tuesday, announced through the Information Minister, again highlight the PTI government’s incompetence. The govern0ent’s policy is simple. When it fails to resolve a problem, it denies its existence. When it cannot deal with another issue, it advises people to stop talking about it as it thinks it has no solution. When Imran Khan’s tweet fails to produce the desired effect, the government puts the issue on the backburner. Instead of getting a serious charge against the PM cleared through court, it simply calls the accuser rude names and proceeds ahead.
The World Bank says Pakistan has been hard hit by rising food prices with double-digit year-on-year food inflation numbers. The State Bank maintains that “on a sequential basis, inflation rose three percent (month-on-month) to a 21-month high at 11.5 percent in November and is likely to remain within the revised forecast range (9-11 percent) for the remaining part of fiscal year 2021-22”. Briefing the media Fawad Ch4dhry claimed that weekly inflation rate had come down by as much as 0.07 percent and apart from the prices of banaspati ghee and tea leaves, rates of all other essential items were lower in Pakistan as compared to the region.
The country was told that the natural gas resource was depleting fast and Pakistan will have no gas in years to come. People getting gas at cheaper rates in big cities should now change their habits. What they should use as alternative was left to them to figure out. As far as the government is concerned it has thrown up its hands in despair.
As PM Khan’s tweet promising ‘strong action’ to resolve the problems of the Gwadar protestors turned out to be a damp squib, their sit-in has continued. The cabinet has now nominated two federal ministers to do what the PM failed to.
Retired Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed, a former leading light of the PTI and its Presidential candidate in 2013, claimed in a recent TV show that Imran Khan used to get Rs 5 million from his political aides to run his palatial Banigala residence. Instead of taking Ahmad to court if he was making a false allegation the Information Minister called him a buffoon, thinking this was enough to vindicate the PM.
