Pledges efforts to cut inflation | Admits allowing Sharif to go abroad as biggest mistake
MANDI BAHAUDDIN
Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that Pakistan has been put on the right course with record exports, tax collection and remittances by the expatriates.
Addressing a public gathering on Friday, the prime minister said that inflation is impacting the common man and the government is trying to ebb away its pressure by reducing taxes and duties on petrol import. Asking journalists to not only tell people about inflation but also tell the nation the reason behind it, Khan blamed the Covid-19 pandemic for the rising inflation, asking what the government could do about rising oil prices in the international markets.
He said that inflation was at peak during PML-N and PPP tenures and added that inflation was at the highest level in the US and UK in the last 40 years and 30 years, respectively. He promised to reduce inflation and assured people that they would soon see what the government is doing to provide relief.
He said that overseas Pakistanis are the biggest asset and that is why they have been given a right to vote. He said that the agriculture sector is flourishing and the government is standing with farmers.
He said the government has enhanced farmers’ income and ensured timely payments to sugarcane farmers.
The prime minister said the government is bringing about an IT revolution in the country as a 70% rise in IT exports has been recorded. He also said the government is providing interest free loans to the youth and Rs1 million health insurance to every family in Punjab.
Imran Khan said, “This is just the beginning and we have to make Pakistan a welfare state with Sehat Card being the biggest step towards it.” He said by March, Sehat Card will be available across Punjab for which the provincial government has allocated Rs400 billion.
“For the first time an independent foreign policy is made in Pakistan,” Imran claimed, saying, “It means that Pakistan doesn’t take dictation from any foreign country”. Allied countries would attack Pakistan in the past but the then rulers would keep mum, he said, adding that they never spoke against it because their money and assets were abroad.
“They were their slaves and still are,” Khan said, adding that he wouldn’t have said “absolutely no” on providing bases to a super power if he has assets and businesses abroad.
The prime minister admitted that allowing former premier Nawaz Sharif to go abroad for medical treatment was the biggest mistake of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government. He while referring to Nawaz’s health condition before he was allowed to leave Pakistan said that the government felt that he might not survive for another day.
Calling the opposition leaders a gang of thieves and a bouquet of dacoits, the premier revealed that it wasn’t him calling them thieves and dacoits but they themselves have been calling each other thieves and looters for the last three decades. “They are all afraid,” he said, adding that Maulana Fazlur Rehman is pushing opposition parties to topple the government because he is sensing that PTI would come in power again in 2023.
Shifting his focus to Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif by calling him a “faint-hearted man”, the PM said that the latter has lately come to know that the secret of keeping billions of rupees in a peon’s account was not a secret any more.
Expressing that Imran Khan couldn’t be bought, the PM said that he would not give NRO – a deal – to the opposition like former military ruler Gen (retd) Pervaiz Musharraf did. “There will be no NRO until you return the country’s looted money,” Imran announced, “I won’t leave them until they return the nation’s money.
