ISLAMABAD: Federal Information Minister Maryam Aurangzeb while responding to Imran Khan’s address said that those who destroy the people and the economy of Pakistan have released a white paper today.
She alleged that “the black minds, black deeds and black magic Mr and Mrs” brought the country to economic bankruptcy. The information minister said Imran Khan should be ashamed of issuing the white paper. She said he should rather have apologised to the public for making Pakistan desolate while developing.
From 2013 to 2018, Pakistan was developing economically. The white paper from 2013 to 2018 should have been given to the people of Pakistan about what kind of country the PTI got, Aurangzeb added.
No white paper can whitewash their corruption, theft, and economic destruction, she said.
The minister said that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government left the country growing at 6.1 percent in 2018. The CPEC projects were running successfully in the country. 14,000 megawatts of electricity had been made and given to them and the inflation rate was 3.8 percent.
After breaking the back of terrorism, the PML-N left Pakistan as a peaceful, prosperous, and developing country. All international journals were declaring Pakistan’s economy to be better, she added.
In 2018, when these “fascists and incompetents were imposed” on the country, the growth rate at that time was 6.1 percent, she said, while adding the rate of inflation was 2.1 percent, flour was 35 rupees per kg, and sugar 52 rupees per kg. In 2018, the shortage of electricity and gas was over.
She asked Imran Khan to issue a white paper from 2018 to April 2022. Imran Khan took the largest loan of Rs45,000 billion in the history of the country, Aurangzeb said.
She asked who will tell the public that the rate of inflation went from 2.4 percent to 15 percent.
She said the growth rate of 6.1 percent was released by the PTI-era survey. Imran Khan took the growth rate to negative one and a half percent in the first year, she added.
How will you tell the people of Pakistan that you had reduced the unit of electricity from Rs11 to Rs26, she asked further that how will you explain why you increased the gas prices?
There was no country that was satisfied with Imran Khan’s government, she said.
Imran Khan brought China, Turkey, and other foreign investors under the NAB’s eye, she said. They believe that their white paper will cover up their actions. Tell the people of Pakistan that terrorism is back in this country from 2018 to 2022, she said.
He has been in government for nine years in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and not even a department has been formed there to deal with terrorism, the Federal Minister for Information said. Imran Khan also stopped all CPEC projects, she added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023