Former Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin has accused the incumbent government of misleading the public by presenting distorting figures in the recently announced Budget 2022-23.
Flanked by PTI leaders Omar Ayub Khan and Muzzammil Aslam in a press conference, Shaukat Tarin said the government was misleading the people by claiming they face an uphill task on the economic front.
Earlier, the incumbent Finance Minister Miftah Ismail defended the budget by saying that they formed it while keeping in mind the “difficult phase” the country is going through. He also criticized the former government for not taking steps to resolve the issues.
Read more: Shaukat Tarin says Miftah Ismail wanted his help to deal with IMF
Hitting back, Shaukat Tarin said PTI’s tenure witnessed “record growth” in several sectors. During PTI’s tenure, the country’s debt did not increase by 80%, it moved up by 76%. Moreover, he said PTI created 5.5 million jobs during its tenure, which means that the ousted government was able to create 1.84 million jobs annually, while PML-N created 1.1 million and PPP 1.4 million.
“All the numbers are published and public. Please take the country’s economy seriously and stop misleading the people. The numbers don’t lie despite your ‘spin doctory’,” Shaukat Tarin said.
Furthermore, Shaukat Tarin criticized the growth targets set by the incumbent government. He said because of PTI, Pakistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) clocked in at 6%, but the government, in the budget for the fiscal year 2022-23, has projected it to be 5%.
Shaukat Tarin (@shaukat_tarin ) talks about the unrealistic growth targets that imported government has set. #وجہ_کیا_تھی pic.twitter.com/zOn90shWWG
— PTI (@PTIofficial) June 11, 2022
Budget 2022-23
Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Miftah Ismail presented the budget for fiscal year 2022-23 on Friday in an orderly session of the National Assembly of Pakistan.
He started his speech by bashing the PTI government. He accused the PTI government of hurting the economy and the lives of the people.
“An inexperienced team brought the country to the brink. Different people presented the budget every year presenting different policies which hurt investor sentiment,” the finance minister said.
Read more: No need to declare financial emergency: Miftah Ismail
The current expenditure for fiscal year 2022-23 budgeted at Rs 8,694 billion is 15.5 percent higher than last year. Interests payment or debt servicing constitute 45.4 percent of the total current expenditure—the largest expenditure in the new budget—standing at Rs. 3950 billion after an increase of 29.1 percent as compared to last year.