K-P finance minister trashes Dar’s claims

Says Moody’s, Fitch rate Pakistan ‘negatively’

PESHAWAR:

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Minister for Health and Finance Taimur Saleem Jhagra has said that no one trusts Pakistan’s economy as Moody’s and Fitch’s ratings about the country were negative.

Addressing a press conference on Sunday, he said that Federal Minister Ishaq Dar claimed that there is no or minimal risk of Pakistan defaulting but the economy is in really bad shape.

“It is good that someone in the ‘imported government’ said something about the country’s economy. As a Pakistani, no one would want our country to default,” he said, adding that Moody’s and Fitch’s ratings are reliable as independent institutions.

“The value of our international bonds is falling. Therefore, the international market does not trust our economy. After 1971, the country is going through a period of historic inflation,” remarked the minister.

The finance minister said that the IMF has no confidence in the Pakistani economy, so it hesitated in (approving) the second installment. The dollar exchange rate may be under control in the interbank market, but it is valued at Rs240 in the open market and due to this rate difference, international remittances are decreasing.

Jaghra advised the federal government that instead of filing false cases against Imran Khan, the government should focus on the economy, adding that the government should take serious steps to restore trust in the international market to stabilize economy.

“The government is not taking steps to stabilize the economy because it will have its consequences in the elections,” he mentioned.

Jhagra said that the federal government cannot handle the economy.

“Before coming into power, Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) was protesting against inflation but after forming the government they took a U-turn,” he added, saying that the general public should be taken into confidence on economic issues.

Referring to a newspaper article of the former finance minister, he maintained that Miftah Ismail admitted the government’s failures.

Gallup survey has unearthed the failure of the Pakistani economy. According to the survey, 88 per cent of businessmen believe that the country’s economy is not going in the right direction. The federal government is delaying the transfer of funds to the provinces, the provincial minister observed.

The prime minister refused to transfer the Rs10 billion he announced for flood victims of K-P. We don’t need Shehbaz Sharif’s clothes…we need his economic policy and decision-making power.

He said that the track record of past seven months is saddening and that the direction of the country’s economy should be corrected.

If the “imported government” does not talk about the economy, then we will. We cannot lie to the public and media about the economy, he said.

In response to a question he said that Ishaq Dar’s office was also approached several times by the K-P government to solve the financial difficulties of the province but nothing worked. “The federal government has to solve the economic problems together with the provinces. Homework has begun to go to court to get the funds for tribal districts released. It is our right to go to court, but it is not our priority. We want to solve everything by sitting together. The federation does not give us our due funds and forces us to borrow from the State Bank with interest,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 21^st, 2022.