ISLAMABAD: Former finance minister Shaukat Tarin on Thursday asserted that the agreement with International Monetary Fund (IMF) is not in the public interest.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, the former finance minister said that the PTI-led government had refused to accept IMF’s conditions of raising prices of electricity and petroleum products. “Instead, our plan was to cover the capital by increasing the tax base,” he added.
Shaukat Tarin pointed out that the agreements made by the incumbent government with the Fund were not in the public interest. “Instead of taking a stand against such IMF’s conditions, the government has laid down in front of the Fund,” he added.
He further said that former prime minister Imran khan went to Pakistan’s friends and the IMF to rescue the country from economic woes that began before the PTI came to power. The former finance minister alleged that the economic team of the present regime has released the statistics of PTI government. “We were told that the economy was not strengthening, now they are acknowledging,” he added.
He noted that PTI’s policies in the past two years enabled higher growth for two consecutive years and in the current year, the country posted 4.4 percent growth in the agriculture sector and 7 percent in the industrial sector.
In response to a question regarding purchase of oil from Russia, Shaukat Tarin said that If India and China can procure oil from Russia then why not Pakistan? “The imported rulers are afraid of the US that’s why they are not making deals with Russia,” he added.