ISLAMABAD: PPP Vice President Senator Sherry Rehman slammed the government over Pakistan’s mounting external debt.
“The alarming rise in our external debt shows the downward trajectory of the government’s lacklustre economic vision,” she said.
“The country’s external debt has swollen to a whopping US $83 billion. The gross public debt now stands at Rs21.4 trillion or 67.2 percent of GDP while it had been Rs14.7 trillion during PPP’s government last year,” she said, adding that the external debt servicing had risen from 13 percent in 2013 to 16 percent in 2017, taking up 30 percent of the country’s export receipts.
“I cannot comprehend how this is not alarming to anyone in the Finance Ministry. This disturbing development could lead Pakistan into a dangerous rabbit hole of debt since our capacity to repay has significantly weakened and we will soon need external financing. This crisis did not happen overnight, it has been going on for four years and the government still refuses to take note of the gravity of the situation,” continued the Senator.
She lamented that despite warnings from IMF and World Bank, the government was yet to make any progress for crucial structural reforms.
“During the campaign season, PML-N promised groundbreaking changes in the economy. We did not expect that setting up Pakistan towards the path of a bailout is what they meant by that,” she concluded.
