Bygone is bygone, PTI wants good ties with US: Fawad

LAHORE: PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry said Friday bygone is bygone and his party wants good relations with the US, and expressed the hope the superpower too would like to have rapport with Pakistan’s most popular political party.

In an interview with BBC programme Hard Talk, he said no political party wants confrontation with the US nor has PTI ever said that. Programme host Stephen Sackur posed some hard questions to Fawad about the critical state of Pakistan’s economy and the performance of the PTI government.

To a question that the economic crisis facing the sitting government is actually the legacy of PTI government, Fawad claimed the country was in a shambles when the PTI formed government and country’s growth rate went up to 6 per cent under the PTI rule, and that happened despite the Covid pandemic. He said the economic crisis emanated from the unconstitutional removal of Imran Khan’s government.

Sackur said Pakistan’s debt stood at $116 billion when the PTI took over 2018, but it rose to $230 billion when the party left government, Fawad said his party’s government had to borrow to return the loans taken by the previous government. He maintained that his party’s government worked to restructure the loans and did as far as economy is concerned. He said Zardari and Sharifs had put Pakistan into a vicious debt cycle.

Stephen Sackur said figures did not bear out that (claim). He referred to promises made by the PTI before election, especially those about corruption, adding that Pakistan fell by 20 points on the corruption perception index (CPI).

Fawad disagreed and said that these were the departments related to rule of law, for example judiciary, not the political side, that had contributed to that index. He said Imran gave the country one of the cleanest governments in 75 years of history. Fawad said the PTI could wait for elections but the government doesn’t want to go to polls.