Incompetent PTI leaders responsible for downfall of economy: Sharjeel

Sindh Information and Transport Minister, Sharjeel Inam Memon has said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Inaf (PTI) is nothing but a group of ineligible and inefficient politicians who are responsible for the ultimate downfall of the national economy.

A handout issued on Wednesday quoted the minister as saying that development claimed to have been achieved in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the past nine years had been getting exposed. He said the volume of the loans borrowed by the KP’s provincial government had exceeded Rs883 billion. He recalled that the PTI had been ruling in KP for the past nine years.

Memon said the loans payable by the KP provincial government since creation of Pakistan until 2013 (when the PTI came into power in the province) had been just Rs97 billion. He said the amount of loans borrowed by the KP government during the PTI’s regime had increased by 800 per cent in the last nine years.

He was of the view PTI had been given the chance to form the federal government after 2018 general elections on the basis of its performance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since 2013. He said the PTI’s provincial government in KP had obtained stay orders from courts to halt probed by the anti-corruption watchdog into the scandals of the Malam Jabba holiday resort, the BRTS Peshawar project and the billion-tree tsunami programme.

The information minister said the international agencies had also indicated that corrupt practices had increased in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but no one was willing to hold accountable those responsible for this sorry state of affairs. He was of the opinion that the foreign funding case against the PTI was like an “open and shut case”, but it was unduly being prolonged for the last eight years on flimsy grounds.

He said the “threats and unruly behaviour of the PTI’s legislators” shouldn’t remain unchecked as they had even threatened to carry out suicide attacks due to their rage after being ousted from power.