PTI govt’s 3-year performance: Poverty increases 40pc, 2m people become jobless: PPP

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has said that during the rule of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in the last three years, poverty has increased in Pakistan by 40 percent, and more than two million people have been rendered jobless.

While reacting on the performance report of the PTI government, Central Information Secretary PPP-P and member National Assembly Shazia Atta Marri has said that we don’t need a 256-page report to understand the performance of this “incompetent Niazi government”, which is based on “lies”.

She further said in the last three years, public debt has increased by 52.3 percent and reached Rs38.006 trillion, which is an increase of double than what the PPP took and more than half of the PML-N’s share.

“40 percent households of this country cannot afford nutritious food and due to lack of proper food and nutrition, almost 30 percent children in Pakistan are malnourished, while during 2019 among every newly 1,000 born babies, 67 died before their 5th birthday due to lack of healthcare facilities in the country. Income earned by over 6.7 million Pakistanis has declined in the last two years and around 16,780 families in the KP remain displaced after the monsoon floods that hit the province,” she said, in a statement on Friday.

“Unemployment rate has jumped from 6.2 percent to 15 percent and in 2020, over 20 lacs people went jobless, which is almost a quarter of one crore jobs that this PTI government promised,” she said.

She said that Prime Minister Imran Khan Niazi had announced the installation of a desalination plant in Karachi, but no plant was installed and Karachi is still suffering from water crisis.

She further said that the country has reached double-digit inflation rate, which is currently averaging almost at 11 percent, while income tax has increased by 15 percent, which is burdening over 78.3 percent of the population of the country.

Shazia Marri said that inflation rate has also risen higher than our neighbouring countries, India and Bangladesh in three years, besides it, country recorded a trade deficit of Rs562,924 million in June this year and imported locally-produced crops e.g. wheat.

She said that the economic growth rate of the country has decreased by 29.3 percent and food items inflation has doubled in the past three years.

She said that circular debt has doubled and now stands at Rs2.28 trillion, while Khan celebrated not taking loan from State Bank in a year. She said that petrol prices have increased 25 rupees per litre and Khan and his cronies kept misleading people that it is lowest among many countries, ignoring international market and currency exchange rates.

She further said that GDP growth nosedived from 5.8 percent to 1.8 percent, electricity tariffs have also increased by a whopping 40 percent and moreover, first time in the history of country, people faced Sui gas load-shedding in summers as well.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021