Shehbaz Sharif regrets political opponents continue making conspiracies and misleading nation at this critical time n Puts responsibility of current economic crisis on PTI govt as it breached IMF agreement n Says current govt has now met all IMF conditions and hopes loan program revival very soon n With govt efforts, Pakistan has purchased Russian crude oil at less than the international price n May 9 incidents ashamed the whole nation.

ISLAMABAD   -   Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said that po­litical stability was highly important to achieve eco­nomic strength, attract investments, and ensure development as well as prosperity in the country.

“Until there is no po­litical stability, there would not be any eco­nomic stability as both are inter-linked with each other,” he said this while addressing the inaugural ceremo­ny of the rehabilitated and widened Captain Karnal Sher Khan Sha­heed Road (previous­ly known as IJ Principal Road) here yesterday.

The PM said that in a situation where there was political instability in the country, the po­litical opponents were hatching conspiracies every­where, spreading false propa­ganda and misleading the na­tion; nobody would be ready to invest in the country.

Putting the responsibility of current economic crisis on the previous government, the prime minister said it breached its own agreement with the Inter­national Monetary Fund (IMF) due to which the confidence of the Fund in Pakistan shattered and it was now hesitant to re­sume its agreement.

However, he said the current government had met all the conditions of the IMF and hoped that the programme would re­sume anytime very soon.

PM Shehbaz resolved that “under the leadership of Nawaz Sharif, we all together would bring the country out of the cri­sis and make it a stable and de­veloped Pakistan.”

He said those nations re­mained alive and move forward with pride that remembered their martyrs and respected the armed forces.

The May 9 incidents ashamed the whole nation, he said adding the martyrs sacrificed their lives for the sake of the country’s se­curity and saved hundreds of thousand children from becom­ing orphan by making their own children orphans.

He said a patriotic citizen could not even think of what had happened on May 9. The people involved in the incidents were in fact enemies of the country, he added.

He said the facts had proved now that the conspirators just wasted the nation’s precious time by making false allegation of removing his government by a cypher from the United States.

He said due to the sincere ef­forts of current government, the crude oil had been purchased at a price, at least $15 per barrel less than the international price.

“Each dollar is important for us at this critical time, we need to minimize inflation and we need to provide maximum re­lief to the common man,” he said adding despite economic crisis, the government had provided maximum relief to the people.

He also appreciated Finance Minister Ishaq Dar for present­ing a pro-poor budget. He in­formed that the government had raised the salaries of gov­ernment employees by 30% to 35% and pensions by 17.5%.

With respect to the false alle­gation by the PTI Chairman, PM Shehbaz said if there was any corruption, the proof should have been presented. “If there is any proof, we will happily present ourselves for investi­gation,” he added.

Imran Niazi kept on term­ing his opponents as thieves but he himself had been proved to be guilty of corruption in Toshakhana and Al-Qadir Trust cases, he added.

On the occasion, Interior Min­ister Rana Sanaullah said the PML-N under the leadership of Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Shar­if, had eradicated the menace of terrorism from the country. He said overcoming the electrici­ty load shedding was also hall­mark of the PML-N government.