LAHORE – Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said Saturday that Pakistan is moving in the right direction and will not default despite opposition propaganda.
“Pakistan is not going bankrupt just because of opposition (Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf) propaganda. The direction of the country is right and it is not heading towards a default,” Mr. Dar stated during his conversation with businessmen.
PTI leader Imran Khan and other leaders of his party have predicted a default by Pakistan due to the “bad policies” of the PML-N-led coalition government. Mr Khan believes that the country’s economy can only be stabilized if a stable government comes in after new elections and tackles the situation.
Mr Dar went on to say that the opposition is harming the country’s “economic cause”. “Furthermore, the opposition is trying to discourage foreign investment in the country by spreading stories of corruption. The PTI must take a serious stance and not play with the country’s economy,” he stressed.
The Minister regretted the treatment he received during the last term of the PML government. “I was treated like a terrorist. And my only crime was fixing the country’s economic problems. I was forced to live in exile (in the UK) for five years,” said Mr Dar.
Eliminates the possibility of non-payment
He also chided the previous PTI and PML-N governments for sticking to the rupee devaluation policy. “We devalued the rupee. During the tenure of Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, I had made it clear that if a devaluation policy were followed, the government could not stop the devaluation of our currency,” he claimed.
Ishaq Dar criticized the policies of his party’s former finance minister, Miftah Ismail. After returning from London in September after securing bail on a NAB corruption tip, Mr Dar replaced Mr Ismail and focused on stabilizing the local currency.
During its first weeks in office the rupee saw an upward trend but of late it has been struggling and currently its value against a US dollar is over Rs230 and in the open market the foreign currencies particularly the US dollar and the euro are hardly available.
Mr Dar said that no more experiments could be done with the national economy. “We are trying our best to stabilize the economy,” he said, adding that the government had decided to stop wheat smuggling on a war basis.
He said that as Pakistan grew at the end of the PML-N government’s tenure, it should have been among the G-20 countries today, Samaa TV reported. Instead, he lamented: “Our economy is currently ranked 46th in the world”.
The finance minister reminded that in 2013, when they took over the country, many people said the country was on the verge of default, but the PML-N government managed to avert it.
On the current challenges facing the PDM government, Mr. Dar said, “We must work hard and focus on improving Pakistan’s macroeconomic indicators.”
“Here the rich get their loans written off, but if [repayments of] Loans from a few thousand poor widows are delayed, their property confiscated,” he said.
Gohar Ijaz, a participating businessman, urged the government to lower interest rates. Turkey has kept interest rates low despite inflation, “why can’t we do that,” he asked.
Published in Dawn, December 11, 2022
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