PML(N) government during its first six months have added to poverty

Lahore: The economic policies of the PML(N) government during its first six months have been a complete failure and have added to poverty, price hike and unemployment, Secretary General, Jamaat e Islami, Liaqat Baloch and Secretary, JI Economic Committee, former Member, FBR, Sarfraz Ahmed Khan, told a press conference here on Sunday.

They said that the agricultural, industrial and economic revolutions which the PML(N) had promised to the people in its election campaign seemed to be a nightmare and the  country had been driven far away from the goal of development and economic prosperity.

The PML(N) had promised bringing down the budget deficit to Four per cent, raising the tax-GDP ratio from nine per cent to fifteen per cent by 2018, reducing the inflation to 8/9 per cent , raising the Investment-GDP ration to 20 per cent, 8 per cent growth in industrial production and exempting all exports from Sales tax , but none of these targets could be achieved during the last eight months. The party which had made tall promises of breaking the begging bowl and shaking the yoke of IMF slavery, had picked up a mega size begging bowl

The JI’s Economic committee suggested to the government to bring the POL prices at the international level, get rid of the IMF besides strict control on the electricity and gas thefts and their line losses. It also called for lowering the indirect and direct taxes , reducing the difference between incomes and expenses  and ensuring an equitable distribution of wealth.

They also called for a thorough study of the privatization of the state institutions in the past by independent bodies to find out how far the government had achieved its goal, about the transparency of the privatization process, and also the benefits drawn by the parties/ individuals who got these institutions.  They also demanded immediate suspension of the process of privatization of another 34 institutions to stop their sell out on throw away prices, and also to prevent unemployment of thousands of more workers.

Sarfraz Ahmed Khan presented a detailed analysis of the PML(N) election  manifesto and its performance so far. He said, during the last six months, the government had raised the petrol price by Rs. 30 per liter causing steep rise in the prices of essential goods and food items. Due to this, about 40 per cent of the population had gone below the poverty line.

He said the government had made the tall claim of bringing down the value of the US dollar equal to Rs. 91, but at present dollar value stood at Rs. 107, which had raised the quantum of the foreign loans abnormally.

He said, the government which raised the slogan of Trade, not Aid, had obtained loan of 6.7 billion dollars from the IMF on most stringent terms and this huge amount was to be utilized simply on the payment of the previous loans.  He said,  at present, Pakistan was at the top of the list of 27 under-debt countries who had to spent 30 per cent of their GDP on payment of loan during the present financial year.

He said, the Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had admitted that Pakistan had secured loan of 32.85 million dollars from the Islamic Development Bank on 2.7 per cent interest rate, and a Saudi loan of 100 million dollars on two per cent interest rate had also been approved. There was another 1.70 billion dollar loan from the World bank, The Bank consortium was giving 505 million dollars. A loan of one billion dollars would be received under the Euro bonds scheme. He said the Finance Minister had claimed that the Forex reserves would go up to 15 billion dollars by the next year. Foreign loan had risen to 76 million dollars while fresh loans were being received from abroad. According to the Finance Minister, currency notes totaling 6.72 trillion had been issued. Of these, 4.66 trillion had been issued  in exchange of old notes while  fresh currency notes amounting to Rs. 2.72 trillion had been issued during this period. During this short period, the government had obtained loan amounting to Rs. 750 billion from the State bank.