Sherry Rehman flays government over economic crisis

Islamabad: Highlighting the unfolding economic crisis in Pakistan, Vice President PPP, Senator Sherry Rehman said Pakistan is facing an economic crisis with no respite in sight.

It comes as no surprise that according to a recent Ipsos survey, 62% of Pakistanis have expressed dissatisfaction with the federal government’s performance when it comes to controlling inflation. The government does not seem interested in learning from its mistakes and is instead just making life difficult for people with their incompetence”.

“It is shocking that during a global pandemic while vulnerable communities hang by a thread, the government has slapped a 10% hike on price of essential medicines and surgical instruments. They have jacked up medicine prices at least 12 times, a whopping 35% surge since 2018, making healthcare unaffordable. It is the government’s responsibility to provide relief to people but here they have even made life saving medicines difficult to afford. With inflation, unemployment, increase in food and electricity prices, they should at least not add to peoples’ misery. Playing politics during a national health crisis is alarming,” she said while rejecting the back-to-back hikes in drug prices.

Rehman said, “Inflation has been on an exponential rise since the PTI government came into office. In 2018, according to the World Bank inflation was at 5.07% but it has sharply increased to 8.4% in July 2021 and is expected to increase further due to the devaluation of PKR and increasing domestic fuel prices. Our Current Account Deficit has increased by 81% to $1.5 billion while FDI has declined by a 20% in the last two months. Poverty rate in Pakistan has been increasing since 2018, and has increased by 7.4% in 3 years of PTI government. These statistics should be taken seriously because they are foretelling us of the economic collapse”.

“People are already struggling because of the increasing electricity prices and now they have to worry about these advance income taxes. The bills already include fuel adjustments and other taxes. After the Tax Laws (Third Amendment) Ordinance 2021; FBR, NADRA and NAB will be able to share tax details and records with each other. One can’t help but notice the ulterior motive PTI government has behind this. Once again NAB will reopen old cases to target the opposition while FBR has been given sweeping powers,” she added while condemning the 5% to 35% advance income tax on electricity bills through Presidential Ordinance.

Discussing the devaluation of rupee, Rehman said, “In the last three years of PTI government, PKR has devalued by 39%. It has somewhat settled at Rs 169.40 now, which is still way too high for comfort. It had gone up to a peak of Rs 170.7 while the government claimed that it happened due to high international brent oil prices. However, the prices of brent oil have been substantially higher in the past without reaching this level of devaluation of the PKR. Oil prices have been way higher in our govts but the rupee value did not crash like this. When the rupee is this volatile, it is the government’s responsibility to say something to calm the markets, but that’s clearly not the case here. The sharp rise in trade deficits and current account deficit over 3 months is a huge part of the reason. Our food import bill has soared by 55% to $6.2 billion mainly due to sugar and wheat imports, something that has not happened during PPP’s government. Now the question is that why are our exports not picking up?” Rehman asked.

“Currency devaluation is strongly linked to the current account deficit and trade deficit, and the government has been adding to it due to the ever-growing import bill. PTI government is responsible for the millions of people who are suffering due to the devaluation of the PKR, which is leading to extremely high oil prices, and contributing heavily to food inflation,” concluded PPP Parliamentary Leader in the Senate, Senator Sherry Rehman.