CM aide says country’s debt swelled under PDM govt

PESHAWAR: Adviser to Chief Minister on Finance Muzzammil Aslam on Friday said that two years ago, the total debt of Pakistan stood at Rs43,000 billion which swelled to Rs70,000 billion during the two years of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government.

In a video statement, he scoffed at Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for expressing joy over the IMF package. He said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s debt hovered at Rs650 billion, adding that the media was giving wrong facts about the provincial debt.

The adviser said the Sindh province had a debt of over Rs1000 billion. Muzzammil Aslam said the Punjab’s debt stood at Rs1700 billion in addition to which Rs1000 billion are due in terms of commodity financing of wheat.

The pension liabilities in Sindh province was Rs6,000 while in Punjab it was about Rs10,000 billion. He said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had minimum liabilities of almost Rs4,000 billion due to the first pension reform in 2022 in all of Pakistan.

Muzzammil Aslam asked why the details of the debts of Sindh and Punjab were not shared on the media, because the Punjab and Sindh governments gave a huge amount of funds in terms of advertisements to the media, so their debts were not being told while on the other side Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government gave grants to the press club to help poor journalists.Muzzammil Aslam announced that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was the first province in Pakistan to set up a debt management account to pay off the province’s debt