ISLAMABAD - Pakistan People’s Party chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari yesterday alleged that Prime Minister Imran Khan was running the country on the directions of the International Monetary Fund. The PPP leader strongly criticized the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf-led government on the issue of high electricity and gas tariffs, stating that the IMF had directed Imran Khan to increase the electricity bills and the PTI government issued the ordinance in this regard. Imran Khan has run the Pakistani economy on the instructions of the IMF hence tarnishing the country’s image, he added. Bilawal said that the people were suffering the consequences of Imran Khan’s incompetence in the IMF deal through their high electricity and gas bills. Imran Khan has now planned to rob 700 billion rupees from the pockets of the poor people, he said. He said that Imran Khan was proud of his performance; people are looking for this performance for the expensive electricity and gas bills in their hand. “Imran Khan who tore the electricity bill at Rs 8 per unit is now silent when it has gone up to Rs 21 per unit,” he said in a statement. According to Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Imran Khan has no idea about the situation of a middle class family who is reluctant to run the air conditioner due to expensive bills in this hot weather and during the month of Ramazan while they are fasting. In the State of Madina, will the savings of a middle-class common man be used only to pay electricity and gas bills, he stated. The PPP chief also said that PTI had called a sit-in at D-Chowk against inflation and is now making people stand in line in front of banks to pay the expensive electricity bills.
Addressing Imran Khan, he said that Prime Minister, it is not the previous governments that are responsible for raising the electricity and gas bills but you yourself. He also said that the people of Pakistan are paying a terrible price for change in the face of high electricity and gas bills. Bilawal termed the price hike of electricity by the PTI government for ordinary consumers who use 300 units per month as an extreme act of poor enmity.
He demanded that Imran Khan should announce a reduced price for consumers who use 300 units per month.
He said that the extraordinary increase in electricity and gas prices has created havoc in the country by bringing a tsunami of inflation today due to high prices of electricity and gas. Declining demand for Pakistani products is also affecting the export sector, he said, adding, that a possible increase in gas prices would make fertilizer more expensive, leaving 43 per cent of the country’s agricultural manpower and 20 per cent of GDP affected, he added.
