ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar Tuesday, while talking about the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI's) "successes" and "failures" in two years in government following the 2018 general elections, said that Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan was determined to sail the country out of the current crisis.
Addressing a press conference here, he said after facing serious crisis inherited by the PTI government from the previous regimes, PM Imran Khan had "settled at the crease now", and was ready to "play a long and productive innings" for the country's betterment.
While counting three biggest achievements of the PTI government, Umar said that the biggest achievement of the PTI government was giving primary role to the masses in decision making, and all decisions of PM Imran Khan were intended to provide relief to the poor and the middle class.
He said the second achievement of the federal government was an effective foreign policy.
PM Imran made all decisions on the international level to protect the interests of Pakistan because everyone knows that he does not have any properties or business interests abroad.
He further said the third biggest achievement of PM Imran was successfully defeating novel coronavirus, while major world powers and developed countries were still struggling to curb the outbreak.
Talking about failures and mistakes of the government, he said that biggest mistake was confrontation with the media.
He added that this confrontation damaged the PTI's image due to "negative" reporting by media.
Umar said that the second failure of government was mishandling of accountability narrative.
Explaining the reason behind the failure, he said that accountability laws and institutions were formed by the past government and executive had no control over them.
According to planning minister, the third failure of government was its failure to control prices of everyday use commodities.
There is resentment among masses over rising inflation, he added. "After struggling for 22 years, Imran Khan became prime minister, and with the combination of dignity, courage, and grace, he successfully faced worst economic situation, Indian challenge that erupted after the Balakot situation, and the COVID-19 crisis," Asad Umar added.
He said the government's timely decisions and actions minimized the impact of the COVID-19 on people's health as well as economy as compared to other regional countries.
"We succeeded to show competence, deployment of best technology and political cohesion in containing COVID-19 and minimizing economic impact on the common people," he added.
Asad Umar said despite pressure for imposing a complete lockdown from other political parties, media and the civil society, the government chose the option of "smart lockdown" keeping in view the difficulties of poor people.
He maintained that with respect to the COVID-19, the PM took all the actions and decisions by engaging all provinces, Gilfit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir that was proof of the fact that irrespective of party affiliation, Imran Khan was ready to work together only for the betterment of the country.
While criticising the opposition parties, he said the opposition parties' 'NRO demand' would never be accepted.
He said the government took data-based, scientific-based and analysis-based decisions to contain the pandemic and protect the economy.
Umar pointed out that this was a unique challenge in which world's economies failed. The world, he said was acknowledging Pakistan's efforts in containing the pandemic especially in the context of a highly alarming situation in neighbouring India, where the coronavirus cases have soared steeply.
Presenting the Covid-19 data of past two weeks, the minister added that according to population, deaths in Bangladesh due to coronavirus were four times higher as compared to Pakistan, while in India and Iran the ratio was 1:12 and 1:20, respectively.
On economic front, he said during March-July period, the exports of India and Bangladesh declined by 33 percent and 31 percent respectively, while Pakistan's decreased by 20 percent.
"So, Pakistan faced less loss on both health and economic sides," he remarked.
He said previous governments were focused only on the benefit of a families of the country; however, PM Imran Khan's one and only priority was the people of the country.
He said the PM announced lucrative packages for those whose income was adversely affected by coronavirus.
While appreciating the efforts of the government's economic team, Umar said the prime minister's Adviser on Finance deserves all the praises as he did not resist any relief package for the masses. He added the advisor despite giving huge financial relief packages to masses in the shape of subsidies and corona relief package, also managed to limit the fiscal deficit even below what the IMF had expected.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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