PTI leaders wonder whether PDM govt will be able to make debt payments

ISLAMABAD: The economic wizards of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Thursday questioned whether the “imported regime” of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) would be able to pay off the $8 billion from January to March 2023 and another $8 billion from April to June 2023.

Speaking at a presser, Muzamil Aslam, PTI spokesman on economy and finance along with ex-finance minister Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Taimur Jhaghra, and others, said, “out of $8 billion, $3 billion has been arranged and $5 billion are to be paid by March and we’ve total reserves of $4 billion left”.

As the debt burden continues to pile up, we have to pay another $8 billion by June 2023, he added, for which the PDM regime had no idea how it would pay off the handsome amount as debt repayment.

Taking a jibe at Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, he said that they had pinned high hopes on Army Chief Syed Asim Munir’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, hoping he would manage some $4 billion, but it proved otherwise.

Referring to a statement by the Saudi foreign minister at Davos, in which, he said that his country had stopped giving direct money to other countries due to some tax issues in Saudi Arabia, Aslam said that PDM’s expectations to get some cash from Riyadh also died down.

He continued that “now if it goes to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it will have to present a mini-budget, and through which Dar would burden the masses with Rs200-300 billion additional taxes, which would be a disaster for the industry, negative economic growth, 35 to 50 pc inflation and so on and so forth”.

Jhagra, ex-finance minister, regretted that the federal government, through a notification, placed billions of rupees development budget for tribal districts under the Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal and an unelected KP governor, which is an attack on the autonomy of the province.

He also said that the federal government is intentionally blocking the rightful share in funds for KP, AJK, and GB, just to settle its scores with its rivals, which is not acceptable.

“We had to face financial problems, and despite repeated complaints, our issues were not solved, however, there is no need to be excited as we will come back with a two-thirds majority soon,” he added.

Speaking on the occasion, Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Khalid Khurshid alleged that the federal government reduced GB’s PSDP from Rs20 billion to Rs6 billion, adding out of Rs6 billion, it has only released only Rs2 billion.

He said that the GB government does not even have money to run day-to-day affairs, as it has no money to pay the salaries of the government employees.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023