ISLAMABAD: Former finance minister Ishaq Dar on Tuesday said that the recent increase in the petroleum prices was another bombshell on the poor people, who are already suffering due to growing inflation and unemployment.
In a video-recorded message from London, Dar said that the people are being crushed by this government and they are left with no other option but to launch a massive agitation so that they can get rid of this government and its disastrous policies.
He further said that at these trying times, people will find PML-N and its leadership amidst them.
He said that the price hike in petroleum products has brought inflation in the country and as a result, now, it is affecting almost every household commodity. There is about 23 to 28 percent rise in the prices, as compared to the time when the PML-N left the government.
He contended that this is all because of defective policies and planning of the government. He asserted the government should forthwith take restorative measures to avoid any further devastation in the economic sector.
Ishaq Dar deplored the eight infants dying at the District Headquarters Hospital Sahiwal while holding the PTI’s government responsible for it. This is part of a series of acts of inhuman behavior towards the common man, he added.
He urged the judiciary to take notice of it, to punish those who are responsible for their criminal negligence. There should be an independent inquiry of this highly sad occurrence.
Earlier, in a statement, Ishaq Dar said that the present government has pushed the country to a devastating stage, since there is around dollar 3,500 billion further increase in the debt burden on the national economy, due to the devaluation of Pak rupees in the recent days
It is high time to take some logical administrative and fiscal steps to pull the country out of this quagmire, he added.
He stated that the present government’s economic policies are a complete failure.
Dar went on to say that there was a time when Pakistan was ready to join the G-20 Group because of its economic rise during the tenure of the previous government, but now it seems that things will not fare well.
Currently, the country’s stock-exchange situation is facing troubling times, and it is due to the wrong decisions of the present government, he explained.
Ishaq Dar was of the view that the devaluation of the Pakistani rupee in the recent months was “cruel and unnecessary” decision and that he was deliberately taken to adversely impact the progress achieved in the past when he was at the helm of the affairs.
He pointed out that there was a time when all major financial institutions had declared the Pakistani rupee as Asia’s ‘most favorite’ currency, but now the situation is the opposite.