Daily Times

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday said that Pakistan was sitting on huge amounts of ‘dead capital’ in the form of government-owned land and rest houses and official residences built on that land.

The prime minister took to twitter to announce that statistics pertaining to 90 percent of the state-owned land in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and the federal areas were ‘startling.’ “I have just got figures of 90% of state-owned land in KP, Punjab & federal areas & rest houses/official residences built on this land,” PM Imran tweeted.

“The figures are startling: 34,459 kanals are rural & 17,035 kanals are urban. Just the urban land with buildings is worth over Rs 300 billion!” the prime minister wrote. “So a country that has to borrow money to pay interest on its loans (burdening our future generations) – & daily interest payment is Rs 5 b – is sitting on huge amounts of dead capital (just 90% of urban holdings is worth Rs 300b) in the form of this govt-owned land with buildings,” PM Imran wrote.

According to State Bank of Pakistan, foreign debt and liabilities soared around 14 percent to $95.097 billion in the fiscal year ended June 30, as the country struggles to meet its external financing requirement. Data released by the central bank further revealed that the country’s public external debt amounted to $75.357 billion in June-end compared to $66.103 billion a year earlier. Earlier in the month, Finance Minister Asad Umer in a Senate briefing said that an amount of $9 billion was urgently needed to run the government. “As per budget for fiscal year 2018-19, $9 billion are required to run the country. We are trying to address the root causes that have necessitated borrowing of this money,” he said, adding, “Off course, we know any policy will take time to yield results.”

Published in Daily Times, September 11^th 2018.