ISLAMABAD
\nTwo days after the budget was formally presented in the National Assembly, the PML-N and the PTI continued to butt heads over each other\u2019s economic performance and the state of Pakistan\u2019s external debt on Sunday.
\nEarlier today, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb took to Twitter to share a video clip of a news package featuring former finance minister Shaukat Tarin.
\nThe clip was of a press conference Tarin held yesterday, in which he had said: \u201cThey (government) say ever since Pakistan was formed they (PTI) have raised debt by 80 per cent. It did not increase by 80 per cent in the [four] years [of PTI rule]. It grew by 76 per cent.\u201d
\nReferring to those remarks, Aurangzeb said: \u201cAt last, Shaukat Tarin has admitted that Imran Khan took out loans worth Rs20 thousand billion during his four-year tenure, which is 76 per cent of the loans taken out in Pakistan\u2019s history.\u201d She added that more such \u201cadmissions\u201d would follow.
\nFinance Minister Miftah Ismail then said: \u201cTotal public debt under PTI went from Rs 24,953bn to Rs 44,366bn, an increase of 78pc. And total debt plus liabilities went from Rs29,879bn to Rs 53,544bn, an increase of 79pc. The PTI has added 79pc in 3.75 years of all debt + liabilities added in the previous 71 years.\u201d
\nPTI\u2019s Fawad Chaudhry replied to Aurangzeb by saying that she was bound to make such uninformed remarks when she spent all her time \u201cplaying Candy Crush\u201d a mobile phone game. Yesterday, he claimed the government was not serious because Aurangzeb was \u201cplaying video games\u201d during the post-budget press conference.
\nThe PTI government took out loans of $52bn of which $38bn was to pay back the loans taken out by the previous governments, Chaudhry said in another tweet today. \u201cIf you do not like the agreements made with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), then why does the poor government go to the board?\u201d he asked.
\nIn a later Tweet, he also gave a breakdown of Pakistan\u2019s external debt, saying it was $45bn from 2008-09, $70.5bn from 2018-19 and $88bn till March 2022.
\nMeanwhile, Tarin said that the PTI\u2019s economic performance over the last two years was the best in 30 years. \u201cStop deceiving people, they know the truth. Your performance is evident in the last eight weeks, pathetic,\u201d he said.
\nHe went on to say that the former government was well on its way to accelerating economic growth \u201cin an inclusive and sustainable basis despite very high International commodity prices\u201d.
\n\u201cDon\u2019t know why we were displaced,\u201d the senior banker said.
\nIn a later tweet, Tarin claimed that while PTI\u2019s debt increased by 76 per cent \u201cdespite Covid when tax burdens increased world over\u201d, the PML-N increased debt by 79 per cent during their time.
\nThe economic survey of Pakistan revealed that total external debt had touched $88.8bn (Rs16.29 trillion) by the end of March 2022, having increased by around $2.3bn over the first nine months of the outgoing fiscal year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD Two days after the budget was formally presented in the National Assembly, the PML-N and the PTI continued to butt heads over each other\u2019s economic performance and the state of Pakistan\u2019s external debt on Sunday. Earlier today, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb took to Twitter to share a video clip of a news package featuring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-265922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n