PPP terms PTI’s performance report ‘pack of lies’

ISLAMABAD: Terming the performance report of PTI government a pack of lies, Information Secretary Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians Shazia Atta Marri has said that the party does not deem it necessary to comprehend the 256 pages report.

While presenting the PPP’s stance on the three-year performance of the PTI government, she said that poverty has increased to almost 40 percent during the PTI government's three-year rule, which is making it hard for people to survive below the poverty line. “Public debt has jacked by 52.3 percent to reach Rs38 trillion. It is double the amount the PPP borrowed and more than half of the amount of PMLN’s tenure."

She claimed that 40 percent households of the country could not afford nutritious food and due to lack of proper food and nutrition, almost 30 percent children are malnourished while 67 out of 1,000 children up to the age of five died due to lack of healthcare facilities in the country. The PPP information secretary said that the income of 6.7 million Pakistanis has declined in the last two years, adding that around 16,780 families in KP were displaced after the monsoon floods in the province.

She said that PM Khan had announced the installation of a desalination plant in Karachi, it remained an elusive dream and Karachi had been suffering from a water crisis. She said that inflation rate has reached double-digit, which is currently ranging around 11pc while income tax has increased by 15 percent, placing around 78.3pc of population under a huge burden, adding that inflation rate has gone higher than neighbouring countries like India and Bangladesh.

Mari said, “The country recorded a trade deficit of Rs562,924 million in June this year and imported locally-produced crops, such as wheat,” adding that the unemployment rate had jumped from 6.2% to 15% in 2020 as two million people became jobless, which is almost a quarter of 10 million jobs the PTI government had promised.

She added that the circular debt has doubled and stood at Rs2.28 trillion while PM Khan boasted that the government did not take loan from the State Bank in a year, adding, “Petrol prices have increased by Rs25 per litre while PM Khan and his cronies kept misleading people that it is the lowest among many countries, ignoring international market and currency exchange rates.”

She further said that GDP growth had nosedived from 5.8% to 1.8% while electricity tariffs increased by a whopping 40 percent. Besides, people braced Sui gas loadshedding in summers, the first time in the history of the country.