Ijaz Kakakhel Islamabad
Defence Minister Pervez Khattak on Monday told the National Assembly that a country where there was no inflation would eventually stop progressing and termed the opposition’s attack of the government over rising inflation a “drama”, which, he said, “will not be lapped up by people anymore”.
Speaking in the National Assembly, Khattak said that when the PTI government took over, the country was in trouble. Prime Minister Imran Khan took the country out of troubles.
The previous governments did not pay attention to IT, the country progress through development works.
The minister also challenged leader of the opposition for a debate, said that Shehbaz Sharif should bring a list of tasks he performed as CM, there is a big difference between their performance and ours.
He said that there was inflation all over the world including USA and Europe, the drama of the opposition will not continue now, the opposition was lying so much that it seems to be true, the right decisions of the Prime Minister have not harmed the economy.
He said that the government provided interest free loan facility to farmers. He said that the country was not run by giving jobs, everyone wanted to get a government job.
The federal minister said that due to his performance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he got a two-thirds majority adding that he did not participate in any contract in 38 years, could have earned billions if he wanted.
The defence minister said it seemed that the opposition had a strategy to repeat its lies so many times that they may sound like truth, adding that the year 2023 would reveal the results of the “good work” done by Imran Khan.
He was of the view that the construction industry and other industries generate employment in the country.
“In 2019, Covid-19 hit the world, and Pakistan’s economy should have sank in its wake, but Imran Khan saved it and his measures yielded results.”
Minister for Economic Affairs Omar Ayub Khan said the government has introduced deep seated reforms to improve the efficiency of the energy sector.
The previous government of PML (N) signed expensive power contracts and the country continues to bear the brunt of it in the form of capacity payments.
He said the PML (N) government also abandoned renewable energy projects of four thousand megawatts.
He said we gave the renewable policy and revived the renewable energy projects to improve their share in the energy mix.
This, he said, will accrue a benefit of four thousand billion rupees to the country in the next fifteen years.
The Minister for Economic Affairs said the PTI government signed a cheaper LNG agreement with Qatar, which will help the country save 3.5 billion dollars in ten years.
He said we have made massive investments in the power distribution and transmission system and steps are also being taken to address the issue of circular debt.
Participating in the budget debate, Raja Pervez Ashraf said efforts should be made to ensure food security saying this is important for the development of the country. He said the budget envisages no incentives for the farmers.
He said the proposal of granting arrest powers to the FBR should be withdrawn as it will only pave way for harassment of taxpayers.
