ZULFIQAR AHMAD

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Hammad Azhar on Wednesday blasted Finance Minister Ishaq Dar for “presenting wrong statistics with regard to sinking economy in a failed attempt to hide his economic failures”.

Speaking at a presser, the finance minister rejected the white paper issued by the PTI a day ago, in which the former ruling party painted a bleak picture of the country’s economy.

Reacting to the presser by Dar, Azhar, who is also a former finance minister, said the “so-called economic czar of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM)’s coalition government is yet to come out of his sole expertise which is figure fudging”.

He said that “figure fudging master Ishaq Dar” had staged a comeback to fudge the figures as he did before, and today he once again made a failed attempt to befool the nation and the world despite the fact the economy of the country is at the brink of collapse.

Azhar reiterated that “the whole world knows that the PDM has brought the country to the brink of complete economic collapse, which is reflective in the closure of industry and skyrocketing inflation.”

“I would like to ask Dar just to reflect upon the closure of the industry, the record inflation in the country and so on and so forth if the economy under his leadership is on the right track. And, why the international organizations are downplaying our economic condition if all is well,” he questioned.

He said that foreign exchange reserves of the country held by the State bank of Pakistan (SBP) fell to $6.7 billion as of December, but the finance minister is bent upon misleading the nation. He said that the economy of the country needs to be taken seriously and the mere acting, the finance minister is doing, is no solution to the problems.