ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister and PMLN leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Thursday said inflation, price hike and economic failure are the biggest national security issues as the government has to obtain loans to meet defence expenditures.
Addressing a press conference, the PMLN leader said the PTI-led government should admit before the public that it had failed to deliver and provide them relief. "A government that is selected and comes to power after stealing votes can never take care of its people," Abbasi said while presenting some statistics regarding price hike in the country in the last one year.
Observing that nobody was ready to believe in statistics of the government, Khaqan said the only solution to problems being faced by the poor masses was free and fair elections in the country. He pointed out that the average price hike in the country increased by 11 percent only during the month of November while according to the Sensitive Price Index (SPI), the expenses of a common man increased by 18 percent in the last one year.
"The government cannot satisfy people with logic that there is also inflation and price hike in other regional countries of the world," he said, adding, "as per statistics, the prices of essential commodities in other regional countries like India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal were less than this part of the world."
"Currently, if we talk about the price hike, Pakistan stands at number three after Argentina and Turkey in the world," he said. Abbasi feared that Pakistan would soon occupy the first place in price hike if corrective measures were not taken. "Currently, there is double price hike in Pakistan than the neighbouring country," he said.
He told newsmen that the last one month recorded the highest-ever imports at eight billion dollars whereas in the PMLN tenure, the highest imports were recorded at little over five billion dollars in a month.
He further regretted that the government accepted an offer of obtaining loan from the financial institution whereas the lowest bid of 10.25 percent was rejected only two weeks back. "Who were given such favour of minting billions of rupees," he questioned.
He said as of today, there are 18 spokespersons of the PTI-led government who could only give false statements and abuse opponents but could not talk about the problems of the poor masses.
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said "ears and eyes of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), which had been closed to corrupt practices of the government, would soon be opened." "Can the prime minister say that he is ashamed and could not come up to the expectations of the people," he questioned.
