The economic policies of the PML-N government during its first six months have been a complete failure and have added to poverty, price hike and unemployment. Secretary General, Jamaat e Islami, Liaqat Baloch and Secretary, JI Economic Committee, former Member, FBR, Sarfraz Ahmed Khan, said this while addressing a conference here on Sunday.
They said that the agricultural, industrial and economic revolutions which the PML(N) had promised to the people in its election campaign seemed to be a nightmare and the country had been driven far away from the goal of development and economic prosperity.
The PML(N) had promised bringing down the budget deficit to 4 per cent, raising the tax-GDP ratio from 9 per cent to 15 per cent by 2018, reducing the inflation to 8/9 per cent , raising the Investment-GDP ration to 20 per cent, 8 per cent growth in industrial production and exempting all exports from sales tax , but none of these targets could be achieved during the last eight months. The party which had made tall promises of breaking the begging bowl and shaking the yoke of IMF slavery, had picked up a mega size begging bowl.
The JI's Economic committee suggested to the government to bring the POL prices at the international level, get rid of the IMF besides strict control on the electricity and gas thefts and their line losses. It also called for lowering the indirect and direct taxes, reducing the difference between incomes and expenses and ensuring an equitable distribution of wealth.
They also called for a thorough study of the privatisation of the state institutions in the past by independent bodies to find out how far the government had achieved its goal, about the transparency of the privatisation process, and also the benefits drawn by the parties/ individuals who got these institutions. They also demanded immediate suspension of the process of privatisation of another 34 institutions to stop their sell out on throw away prices, and also to prevent unemployment of thousands of more workers.
Sarfraz Ahmed Khan presented a detailed analysis of the PML(N) election manifesto and its performance so far. He said, during the last six months, the government had raised the petrol price by Rs 30 per liter causing steep rise in the prices of essential goods and food items. Due to this, about 40 per cent of the population had gone below the poverty line.
He said the government had made the tall claim of bringing down the value of the US dollar equal to Rs 91, but at present dollar value stood at Rs 107, which had raised the quantum of the foreign loans abnormally.
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