Omar Ayub paints bleak picture of country’s economy

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Secretary General Omar Ayub Khan Wednesday painted a bleak picture of the country’s economy, fearing more inflation, unemployment, banking and energy crises and devaluation of rupee.In a statement, issued here, Omar Ayub said, “you can figure out from the given facts as how broken and dysfunctional the current government and economic situation is for the upcoming FY 2024 budget”.

He explained that the government would have to pay a whooping Rs5300 billion under the head of interest payment and it would be left with meager Rs5032 billion revenue after paying the due share of the provinces.PTI secretary general asked that in such situation, where will the money come from for paying salaries, meeting defence expenditure, development expenditure; because there will be a huge fiscal deficit.

Omar Ayub said that it would all have to come from new borrowings and a non-existent IMF programme, meaning that the money was not there and the government was relying on ‘castles in the air’ and ‘Operation Figure Fudging’. He expressed alarm that in such situation, it would result in further inflation, more unemployment, further Industries shutting down, banking crisis with higher non-performing loans with ‘run on banks’ possible due to bank liquidity issues, energy crisis and further depreciation of rupee.

Omar Ayub stated that at the time when the economy was in meltdown with negative GDP growth and this government was focused on fixing PTI, which was shameful. He described the current situation that this ‘imported government’ is as though everyone in a bus, speeding along a mountain road is ‘high’ on something and the bus has broken the railings and is in the air on its way down into a ravine for a most horrific and tragic accident.

Meanwhile, PTI West Punjab President Farrukh Habib regretted JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman for using the Prime Minister’s plane like a taxi without any official position. Farukh Habib, in his reaction to Fazlur Rahman’s use of state resources on his private visit, said that JUI-F chief was continuously using the Prime Minister’s plane as a taxi despite the fact that he did not have any official portfolio. He raised a question that would NAB file any case against him for using the plane.