The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf on Thursday termed the Opposition Leader in Punjab Assembly, Hamza Shehbaz’s hue and cry over the current situation of Pakistan’s economy a tactic of shifting the attention of the people and media from his money laundering case.
“Do whatever you (Hamza) want to, the government is not going to give any NRO-type relief to anybody,” Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar said, while addressing a press conference flanked by Minister for National Health Services Aamir Mehmood Kiani and Parliamentary Secretary for Planning Shozab Kanwal here. He said time has come to tell the nation that the meetings of the leaderships of opposition parties are not aimed at charter of democracy but it is a charter of corruption for which they are getting closer. “For how many times you meet with Asif Ali Zardari or Maulana Fazl ur Rehman, you will not get any NRO as your case has now become open to the whole nation,” he said while reacting over Hamza Sharif’s statement.
He said by observing Hamza’s case of money laundering, it seems that his case is not different from that of Zardari and Omni Group. Responding to Hamza Shehbaz’s statement that the people who commit money laundering usually flee from the country and they never return to their country, Hammad Azhar said now he himself has disclosed the reality that former finance minister Ishaq Dar and Hassan and Hussain Nawaz are staying abroad to avoid facing cases in the country. The state minister pointed out that current slowdown in the country’s economy is in fact due to the wrong policies of the previous government who presented false figures. Referring to a recent book written by renowned economist Dr Hafiz Pasha, Hammad said in the book it has been admitted that Ishaq Dar fudged the economic figures to show the rosy picture of the country’s economy. He attributed the current slowdown in economy, hike in inflation and rupee devaluation to the flawed economic policies of the previous government, adding that despite exaggeration in economic figures, the economic growth rate remained at 4.5 per cent.
He said the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf government has helped bringing the country’s economy out of severe crisis. “However, there is much to do yet,” he said, and added that due to prudent policies of the incumbent government, the country’s current account deficit which continued to increase during the previous five years is now rapidly going down as in February it shrank by 72 per cent, whereas the trade deficit also plunged by 37 per cent in March.
He said the government is concerned with hike in inflation but to bring the country’s economy out of default like situation, it has to make adjustments in energy prices and devalue its currency. “We are trying our best to keep this difficult period as short as possible and to move forward on the path of development,” he said, adding that during the next five years, the country will grow rapidly with sustainable development. Regarding slowing down of revenue collection, the minister said due to sharp decline in country’s imports which give 40 per cent of total revenue, the collection in revenue remained low. However, he said, the collection is still three per cent higher as compared to the previous year. With respect to rupee devaluation, Hammad Azhar said during the first eight months of the current fiscal year, the rupee devalued by 10.8 per cent while during same period of the PML-N’s government the rupee devalued by 10.1 per cent and during last seven months of the previous government it devalued by 17 per cent. “When we came into power, the foreign exchange reserves with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) were too low to be disbursed in the open market to keep rupee value intact,” he remarked. Responding to a question with respect to Federal Minister Faisal Vawda’s statement of a good news, the state minister said he is actually referring to the exploration of big offshore oil reserves. “There is no doubt that if the oil and gas reserves are unearthed, they will be among the top 10 big offshore reserves,” he added.
