Bilawal slams govt for 30pc rise in poverty rate

ISLAMABAD: PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has criticised the PTI government for 30 percent rise in poverty rate, blaming the ineptitude and apathy of Prime Minister Imran Khan for the economic ruin of 85 million Pakistanis, who had fallen below the poverty line under this government.

“Prime Minister Imran Khan, it is time to rise from your slumber and apathy as every day, as many as 20 persons are committing suicides due to economic hardship this government has put them under,” he said in a statement Sunday.

Bilawal asked how the federal government believed the common man would be able to make both ends meet with the annual rate of inflation exceeding 14 percent. “The cost of medicines has gone up to 100 percent, leaving people to choose between treatment and sustenance,” he added.

He said the government rolls out amnesty schemes for the elite, whitening their ill-gotten gains, while the poor are told to be content with ‘langarkhanas’ that serve more as backdrops for prime minister’s PR machine.

The PPP chairman said the people of Pakistan are unwilling to tolerate such back-crushing inflation, and that the puppet prime minister’s plans to raise Rs90 billion by increasing electricity rates would be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Bilawal said if the rumours of firing 20 percent of the employees from the industrial sector after Eid become a reality, he feared the repercussions in the country. “Imran Khan keeps blaming corruption, but he himself is patronising and promoting people accused of mega corruption,” he further added.