Dar is Pakistan’s economic hitman: Imran

Urges finance minister to resign after NAB’s corruption reference

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has said that federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar had proved to be Pakistan’s ‘economic hitman’.

Speaking at a press conference here on Thursday, Khan urged Dar to immediately resign after NAB had announced filing a corruption reference against him.

Flanked by PTI MNA Asad Umar, who also spoke on the occasion, Khan said that spiking internal and external debts, dwindling exports, declining foreign investment, electricity shortages, stagnant growth in agriculture sector, losses to government corporations and diminishing revenue collection had adversely impacted the already fragile economic situation.

He said ‘corrupt’ rulers were responsible for ‘worsening’ economic condition in the country and added that bad governance was also a major factor.

Rebutting former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s claim that Pakistan was making rapid economic progress during his tenure, he said that Sharif’s disqualification would harm whatever progress had been achieved.



Pakistan’s current economic situation was worse than the economies of war-hit countries, he insisted.

“Pakistan never borrowed so heavily. US President Trump recently threatened Pakistan because he knows about the country’s fragile economic condition,” said Khan.

He said the country obtained massive loans because of falling exports, which dropped to $21 billion this year from $25 in 2011.

“Statistics show that exports of Bangladesh and India have increased consistently over the past six years,” he said, adding Pakistan might face repayment problems because of surging imports and declining exports.

The PTI chief said that during the 2013 general election campaign, Pakistanis were told that the PML-N government would be able to attract foreign investment.

“Foreign investment stands at its lowest-ever position. [Foreign] investors stay away from Pakistan because of corruption of federal ministers and the Sharif family,” he said, adding that this was also the main reason behind the rising unemployment.



He said that farmers had been forced to live in abject poverty because of stagnant agriculture growth.

According to the PTI chief, the slight increase in tax revenue had, to some extent, been possible through indirect taxation on electricity and natural gas.

“They failed to collect taxes from the rich and collected money from the general public and the poor through indirect taxation. This is because corrupt individuals are heading the institutions responsible for tax collection,” he said, adding that profitable government-sector corporations had been facing losses because of bad governance and corruption.