Former finance minister Shaukat Tarin said that that the agreement with International Monetary Fund (IMF) would not serve the interest of the public interest, as the incumbent government laid down before the financial body and accepted its harsh conditions which were categorically refused by PTI government.
Speaking at a press conference here on Thursday, he said that the PTI-led government took a bold step and rejected the IMF’s conditions of raising prices of electricity and petroleum products instead our plan was to cover the capital by increasing the tax base. He further said that former prime minister Imran Khan went to Pakistan’s friends and the IMF to rescue the country from economic mess left by the previous government and successfully put the country’s on path of economic growth.
The former finance minister stated that the economic team of the present regime released the statistics of PTI government, clearly indicating that the economy was strengthening, which they earlier refused to accept the reality. He noted that PTI’s policies in the past two years enabled higher growth for two consecutive years and in the current year, the country posted 4.4 percent growth in the agriculture sector and 7 percent in the industrial sector.
However, he expressed surprise that when everything was running smooth and the country’s economy was stabilizing, dislodging PTI government was beyond comprehension. Shaukat Tarin said that India and China were procuring cheap oil from Russia but the imported rulers were giving lame excuses to avoid deal
