Sherry Rehman sees only incompetence, corruption in three years of PTI govt

ISLAMABAD: Parliamentary leader of the Pakistan People’s Party in Senate Sherry Rehman has said that three years of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government tell only a story of mismanagement, incompetence and record-breaking corruption.

In a press statement issued on Friday, she said the government needed to share its progress with the country as it was the same government which had promised to eradicate corruption from the country and bring about a change in three months.

Senator Sherry said: “The so-called tabdeeli [change] that we have seen in the past three years is unprecedented.” She said never in the history of Pakistan we have seen this kind of inflation, corruption and unemployment. “Unemployment rate has jumped from 6.2% to 15% while poverty has increased more than 30% while ‘Tabahi Sarkar’ is busy presenting dubious figures to mislead the nation. Why is the government not taking responsibility?” she asked.

She said be it sugar, BRT, wheat, LNG, petrol, medicines or the billion trees tsunami, the government has been involved in all kinds of corruption and scandals. But unfortunately there has been no accountability as that is only reserved for the opposition in this “Naya Pakistan”, she added.

The PPP leader said the public debt was equivalent to 98% of our GDP, while our circular debt had gone up from Rs1.1 trillion to Rs2.5 trillion. She said last month, prices of wheat and sugar rose by 15% and 23%, respectively and then the added cost of petrol, electricity, gas and indirect taxes was making survival difficult for people.

She said high petrol prices were further fuelling inflation rate on a weekly basis, as petrol prices had been increased from Rs95 to Rs120 per litre in the past three years. She said due to poor planning, mismanagement, and delay in import of LNG spot cargoes, the government had caused massive losses worth Rs10.6b this fiscal year. “This could have been avoided and billions could have been saved had they purchased LNG early in the year,” she added.

Senator Sherry Rehman said since 2018, electricity tariffs had been hiked by a whopping 40% and now ‘Tabahi Sarkar’ would soon impose an across-the-board electricity tariff of Rs3.34/unit. “Previously, a Rs1.95/unit tariff imposed a burden of billions on consumers,” she said.