Lot of work to be done to save country from bankruptcy, says Miftah

Islamabad: Finance Minister Miftah Ismail has said that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to save Pakistan from bankruptcy.

Miftah Ismail along with the Minister for information and broadcasting held a press conference and said that Pakistan is still at the fourth or fifth place among the countries prone to bankruptcy, so there is still a lot of work to be done to save the country from bankruptcy.

I can say with certainty that good days have come for Pakistan, but we all have to work together now, adding that he said we will reduce the inflation.

Miftah also said that the reason for the country’s economic problems is not only the subsidy on petrol by the PTI government, but the continuation of their 4-year policies as there was a deficit of 5,100 billion rupees in the last year.

The finance minister also said that Imran Khan increased the debt of the country by Rs20,000 billion in just 4 years.

The country had a debt of Rs25,000 billion in 71 years while the debt of the country increased by Rs20,000 billion in the 4 years of Imran Khan. 

Miftah Ismail said that the record budget deficit increased in the PTI government due to which the current account deficit also increased.

He said that more than seven and a half thousand megawatt power plants closed in the country on the day when Shahbaz Sharif took oath as the Prime Minister. 

He said that 5,000 megawatt power plants were closed because there was no fuel and 2,500 megawatt power plants were closed because they were not repaired in time.

Due to all these factors of the previous government, inflation has soared in Pakistan adding that Miftah said that PTI government told all kinds of lies then and are still telling them today, maybe their intentions are good but the thing is that they did not work, they were really incompetent.

Miftah Ismail said that Pakistan had to pay $21 billion to the world whereas our government only had $10 billion and the current account deficit of $12 billion was visible, then former Prime Minister Imran Khan started turning away from the world. 

Miftah claimed that the former PM told the IMF that we are breaking the agreement because of this the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank also stopped funding.

He said that when we took over the government, we tried to solve all these problems. It was very easy for us to increase the one percent sales tax from 17 to 18 percent and achieve the target of tax collection, but it surely affected the people.

Miftah Ismail said that instead of imposing ‘indirect tax’ like the PTI government, we imposed direct taxes. We still have to collect Rs7,500 billion and we will do it with the help of Allah.

The Finance Minister further said that Imran Khan did not do anything for the country but favored his friends by giving the amnesty scheme.

There will be ups and downs in global prices, at that time I will definitely appear in front of you, then you will definitely make memes on me, but we will definitely achieve economic stability, he maintained.

Miftah added that you will not see load shedding in summer next year and the foreign exchange reserves will improve by the next financial year.

The Minister of Finance said that we will receive deposits of $4 billion from a friendly country in two parts and also an oil facility of $1.2 billion from a friendly country. 

I hope that this year we will get $3.5 billion from the Asian Development Bank, $2.5 billion from the World Bank and $400 to $500 million from the Asian Infrastructure Bank.

He said that all measures have been taken to avoid bankruptcy of Pakistan, but it is also important to stay on the straight path, if we stray a little, difficulties may arise again.