Daily Times

Former finance minister Ishaq again grilled Prime Minister Imran Khan for his poor performance and said his entire economic team was imported which perhaps had the agenda of destroying Pakistan’s economy.

In two video messages posted on Twitter, Dar said the PTI government’s economic team seemingly had no concern how much pain the people of Pakistan were experiencing and how the economy was being destroyed.

Addressing Imran directly in his videos for their entire duration, the senior politician – who is a close confidante of PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif – added that it was his [Imran’s] job to look after the affairs as did their party during its tenure.

“We kept Pakistan’s economy stable, we gave the highest growth to Pakistan’s economy,” Dar recalled.

The problem with Imran, he said, was that he didn’t fulfil the promise of doubling the tax collection in one year – a target achieved by the PML-N in five years by increasing the revenue collection from Rs1,946 billion to Rs3,842 billion.

Dar said increasing tax collection [and thus tax-to-GDP ratio] should have been real objective which would have balanced everything, adding that the PML-N would have complimented Imran if he had achieved the goal.

According to the PML-N leader, one would have expenses but only after having income. In fact, the PTI collected 1 percent less revenue [Rs13 billion] during its first year. Against the earlier higher targets of around Rs5,555 billion and Rs4,900, the actual amount collected in the second year is just Rs3,900 as announced in the budget.

Dar also mocked Imran for one of his statements in which he had stated that no country could move ahead without vision. “With all your respect, you do not have any vision,” he remarked.

“It is visionless government, it is an incompetent government,” said Dar and added that the PTI setup was based upon cronyism.

Meanwhile, Dar questioned whether the sentence awarded to Nawaz shouldn’t be declared null and void after the termination of Arshad Malik over misconduct.