Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader and former finance minister Miftah Ismail has said the the incumbent government’s current economic policy would harm the people, instead insisting that the ruling party should ask the International Monetary Fund to change its programme and that the PML-N would “help them and tell them what steps to take”.
“This anti-people budget cannot [pass]. Is there any room left to kill poor people further? Is there more room for inflation? If not, come to your senses,” he said during a presser in Islamabad.
He claimed that Prime Minister Imran Khan had already “lost credibility and people were tired”, adding that some Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf parliamentarians had also developed differences with the premier due to his policies.
“We (opposition) do not have a majority but Imran Khan’s people will not vote for him either now because there is no strength left in his ticket.”
He lambasted the ruling party for the increase in the Sensitive Price Indicator based monthly inflation, adding that the PTI had brought Pakistan to a “dangerous turn”.
He explained that the SPI is calculated based on the price of 51 essential items used by people of the middle and lower class. He further stated that the reports from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics indicate that for even the smallest consumer who uses less than 50 units of electricity, the price has increased by 65 percent. “
For Pakistan as a whole, electricity bills for each Pakistani have risen by 21 percent on average,” he added. Ismail maintained that the overall 40 percent increase in the price of electricity had “no basis”.
“The SPI for April increased 21 percent year-on-year (YoY). Some PTI people made excuses and said it would be better in May. Now, figures for May show that [SPI] has increased 17pc YoY. It means inflation in April increased 21 percent compared to last year and inflation in May increased 17 percent compared to last year for those items that are used by poor people and middle classes.”
The PML-N leader said there was “no example” of the difficulties that Prime Minister Imran’s government had put the middle-class and poor people through.
“SPI food inflation has not gone below 10 percent in any month during the last two years. From February 2021, SPI did not increase by less than 13 percent in any week and since March, SPI did not increase by less than 15 percent in any week. When 17 percent YoY inflation is happening, what will happen to the poor?” he questioned.
“The inflation in Pakistan today is because of Imran Khan’s power to increase inflation, raise the prices of gas, petrol and because of the minting of rupees,” he alleged, further claiming that PTI’s assertions of increased income for people did not account for inflation.
Once inflation is taken into consideration, the only people who enjoy truly increased incomes are members of the PM’s cabinet, he asserted. “Zulfi Bukari’s income has increased. He takes private jets of companies that the government has contracts with and flies to Dubai.”
“An injection of Rs1.5 trillion was done only to protect hot money so Morgan Stanley (bank) could get more money,” he said, claiming that Prime Minister Imran had “not done accountability, only oppression and victimisation”.
If the prime minister wanted to pursue accountability, there were a lot of projects from the Rawalpindi Ring Road scam to the sugar commission’s inquiry report, he said.
Regarding the PTI’s claims of increase in large scale manufacturing, he contended that the government’s claims of highest export in March were “incorrect”, adding that imports were also the highest in March.
“They say sales of cars have increased a lot from last year … 151,000 cars were sold in 10 months of this year. In 2018, when the PML-N was in power, 215,000 cars were sold in 10 months. So they’re still at 30 percent less than us but they are [doing] better than last year.”
The former finance minister maintained that the ruling party would face great difficulty in reaching “where we [PML-N] left exports in 2018 or Rs100-150 million above [that level]”.
Miftah said that the debts and budget deficit in the PTI government’s tenure had “no precedent”.
“They have increased debt by Rs1.3 trillion. If after that, they have increased reserves by Rs200 billion then what [big thing] have they done?
“If for four years, every Pakistani gets electricity, gas, flour and sugar for free, it will not take as much money as the debt accrued by Imran Khan in three years. Half of the amount of debt [Pakistan] took in 70 years has been accrued by Imran Khan in three years. They have left loans taken by PML-N very far behind; Imran Khan has accrued 30pc more loans,” he claimed.
Miftah asked PM Imran to show how the PTI has developed the infrastructure within Punjab. He pointed out that it was N-League that had laid a network of motorways, brought the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Pakistan, generated 11,000 megawatt of energy and built schools and hospitals.
“Why has CPEC shut down now? Tell me what project of it has been started. Tell me, of the nine industrial zones approved by (then prime minister) Nawaz Sharif, why has not even one been built? What industrialisation has been done by Imran Khan? Why has ML-1 not been built?” he questioned.
The PML-N leader remarked that exports cannot be increased simply through the purported narratives of the PTI.
The PML-N leader said that current expenditure had been increased by the PTI government while development expenditure, tax collection and “everything else” had decreased. In the PML-N’s five years in power, the budget deficit on average was 5.5 percent to 5.7 percent. In Imran Khan’s two years, it has been 8.6 percent, he added.
Miftah said that the PML-N feared that the budget deficit would cross 8 percent this year as well, adding that after giving the provinces their shares from tax collected, the country would “only be able to do debt servicing”.
“Now we will have to defend ourselves by taking loans because of the point Imran Khan has brought Pakistan to.”
He claimed that 7.5 million people were living in poverty today while the PML-N had reduced the number by two million during its tenure.
“No matter how much we talk about the State of Medina, we have left the poor people without any support and made them poorer,” he added.
