ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Monday said action against politicians keeping ‘benami’ properties had started from today and all such properties would be confiscated.
Similar action against all other people, who held benami properties or bank accounts, would also begin after three days, he said talking to a private news channel (ARY News).
The prime minister once again urged the non tax filers to register themselves with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and take benefit of the tax amnesty scheme.
After expiry of the deadline (July 3), action against all the benami property and bank account holders would be initiated.
To a question, he said the army and the government were on the same page and he would accept no pressure from anyone and anywhere to give National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) to the jailed opposition leader.
He said the sons of jailed leader had approached two countries to help send their father abroad. But they informed him (prime minister) that they would not interfere in the matter, he added.
He said the two NROs promulgated by former president Pervez Musharraf for the leaders of two political parties had damaged the country a lot, raising the debt from Rs 6,000 billion to Rs 30,000 billion.
The prime minister, however, said there should be a plea bargain and those who were in jails would have to return the looted money to get free and go abroad.
Those people had been given VIP facilities in jails and he had asked the law minister to amend laws for keeping them in common class, he added.
To a question about instability in exchange rate and various economic challenges confronted by the country, he assured that after signing of the IMF deal in a few days there would be economic stability and the issue of exchange rate would end.
Speculations on such a issue was animosity with the country, he added.
The prime minister said Pakistan had come out of the difficult phase. Countries always passed through such difficulties in period of their reforms.
The government was providing facilities to foreigners to attract more foreign investment in the country.
While blaming the previous rulers for the economic woes of the country with ever increasing gap in the fiscal and current account deficits, he vowed to streamline the economy by enforcing strict financial discipline through relevant laws and legislation.
He said a country’s economy was judged globally on the basis of fiscal and current account deficits. The same criterion was being applied by the international donor agencies.
He said his government inherited about 19.5 billion dollar current account deficit which caused huge pressure on the country’s economic outlook and was pushing it into perils of being declared a defaulter.
Besides, he said, total 14 billion dollars commercial loan was obtained by the previous government to keep the value of rupee afloat in the market.
“They used the foreign exchange reserves to keep a check on the value of rupee. About 7 billion dollars were spent by the previous government in one year from the foreign reserves.
When we came to power, we had foreign exchange reserves for only two weeks,” he added.
The prime minister said the timely assistance from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, China and Qatar had greatly helped in easing the financial pressure and improved the foreign payments.
He said without their support, the payment of foreign loans could not have been made possible. The government was able to meet about debt servicing commitments of 10 billion dollars, he added.
The prime minister said the pressure on rupee would be further eased during the current month (July) because it was also linked with the outflows or inter-banks mechanism.
He said the financial situation would be stabilized as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) board was taking up Pakistan’s request for $6 billion bailout package on July 3.
“The country is moving in the right direction,” he added.
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