Pakistan govt.’s announcement of agricultural emergency is symbolic: KP’s Finance Advisor
PRSHAWAR: Advisor to the KP Chief Minister on Finance and Inter-Provincial Coordination Muzzammil Aslam has said that the federal government’s announcement of an agricultural emergency is merely a symbolic step, whereas the reality is that for the past four years, Pakistan’s agricultural economy has been continuously facing destruction.
Addressing a press conference, the Advisor on Finance to KP Government said that under the current Prime Minister’s tenure, a second flood has occurred, and besides symbolic declarations of agricultural and environmental emergencies, they have no roadmap.
Muzzammil Aslam said, "What will declaring an agricultural emergency do when for the past four years, farmers are being eliminated, housing schemes are being built on agricultural lands, and the country has entered a food shortage crisis." He said, "There is a wheat and flour crisis in the country, and fertilizer is the most expensive in the country’s history. Pakistan has now taken the shape of a food-insecure nation where production is continuously declining, and the governments’ focus is only on symbolic announcements."
Muzzammil Aslam said that "It is a matter of shame for Pakistan globally that only 4% of the land area is forested, while 45% of Pakistan’s total forests are in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Prime Minister should tell us; this is his fourth government and how many trees have been planted in the country and in Punjab."
Referring to a statement by former Finance Advisor Dr. Hafeez Pasha, Muzzammil Aslam said that "In the current fiscal year, the country’s growth rate could potentially fall to zero percent, which is a declaration of complete economic failure."
The Finance Advisor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said that "Imran Khan was removed so that the economy could be fixed, but the reality is that during his tenure, the growth rate in the first year was negative 0.5%, in the second year it was 2.4%, which was said to have been achieved through fake methods.
In the third year, growth was declared at 2.7%, about which I told the Prime Minister that this is not correct, upon which the Prime Minister admitted that the data was incorrect. For the fourth year, they were saying the target is 4.2%, but the situation has deteriorated to the point that the country is now among the world’s ten worst economies."
He said, "PTI's government was only given three years, while the current government has been in power for three and a half years and there has been no accountability so far. Our government was criticized every day, but no one questions Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif, Zardari, or Bilawal."
Muzzammil Aslam criticized Bilawal Bhutto and the government, saying that "In the past, during the 2010 floods, Zardari gave the slogan ‘Trade, not aid,’ but even today, these same rulers are running the government on the crutches of international aid."
Referring to the 2022 floods, he questioned, "At that time, Bilawal as Foreign Minister made claims about international aid — where did that aid go?"
Muzzammil Aslam also raised questions about the unfair distribution among provinces in the Benazir Income Support Program and said that "46 lakh (4.6 million) people in Punjab are being given BISP funds, 26 lakh (2.6 million) people in Sindh were given 100 billion rupees, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa received only 72 billion, and Balochistan was given merely 5 billion rupees."
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025