ISLAMABAD - Federal Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar on Friday criticized Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan by holding him responsible for the ongoing economic crisis in the country. In a media talk on the staterun television here, Dar reacted to Imran Khan’s latest statement and said his speech was incorrect and devoid of economic context.
He challenged the PTI chief for live debate between economic teams of both sides to clear the truth. He said that the current economic crisis is due to the wrong policies of the Imran Khan-led government. However, the incumbent government had resolved to sacrifice its political capital to save the country by taking tough economic decisions, he added. “We have no choice but to save the state. We preferred the state to politics and launched the struggle”. Ishaq Dar said that Imran Khan is now defaming the country by spreading false propaganda of default. “You have damaged the country’s reputation”. He further said that instead of building on the economy, Imran opted to focus on political victimization. “We are trying to fix your mistakes”.
He said the country should be kept first and challenges are being managed by the present government. He said the inflation had reached historic high during the PTI government’s tenure and the rupee depreciated due to failed economic policies. Sharing the economic performance, Dar said that PML-N had increased GDP growth in its tenure. The growth rate enhanced from we took the country at 4.5% and by the time they left, it had grown to 6.10%. “In your first year, you took it down to 3.7% and then negative before coming to 6%,” he said while addressing Imran.
Dar said that it was Imran Khan who had agreed tough conditions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) not the incumbent government, due to which the incumbent government is being arm-twisted into taking tough decisions. “We grew the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from $244 billon in 2013 to $356 billion when we left, an increase of $112 billion,” he said, “But during your tenure, it grew only $26b,” he said. When we left the government, the stock market capitalization was $100 billion and was rated among the best performing market. But by the time Imran left, the stock market’s capitalization fell to $25 billion.
On circular debt, Dar said that when they came, the circular debt was at Rs503 billion and when they left it was Rs1.158 trillion. But when Imran left, the circular debt increased to Rs2.4 trillion. “Everywhere you went you gave an incorrect figures of debt,” he claimed adding that including liabilities, the debt was around Rs25 trillion but Imran kept claiming Rs30 trillion. “People would have to be really dumb if they will buy your debt narrative and then come to invest in such a debt burdened Pakistan,” he stated.