Govt will show how poverty is eradicated: Shaukat Tarin

He said PML-N govt artificially maintained the value of Rupee against Dollar during its tenure.

ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin on Thursday said that the government will show how poverty is eradicated and loans would be given to 4 million families for affordable housing and business.

Speaking exclusively in Dunya News program “Dunya Kamra Khan Kay Sath”, he said that the government will give people health cards and technical training in every household.

The finance minister said that the large scale manufacturing would increase by 14 percent and they have started giving loans up to Rs 2 million without security to SMEs.

Tarin said that hydel and solar energy plants will be installed in the future.

He said that former finance minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Ishaq Dar drowned the country s economy, adding that the previous government had shown growth by taking loans but the incumbent government wants to reduce dependence on loans.

He said the previous PML-N government should be asked why they artificially maintained the value of Rupee against Dollar, adding that during the last year of PML-N government, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Miftah Ismail devalued the dollar. “The PML-N government kept the dollar rupee at Rs 96 and if we keep the rupee 30 or 40 percent above, then the GDP will be higher,” he said.

Earlier, addressing a press conference flanked by Minister for Energy and Petroleum Hammad Azhar and Minister for Industries and Production Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, the finance minister said that the current challenging economic situation being faced by the country was the result of wrong policies of the last PML-N government, which had caused a loss of $20 billion.

He said that the current government inherited an economy in a shambles, with high inflation and massive circular debt due to bad decisions of the PML-N regime.

Tarin went on to say that the government had to approach the International Monetary Fund to support the deteriorated economy and accept tough conditions such as high power tariffs. He said that government aims at enhancing revenue collection up to seven trillion rupees by the end of its constitutional term in 2023, adding that we have planned 20% increase in the revenue every year.

The minister expressed the hope to achieve a target of revenue collection up to 4700 billion rupees whereas this target will be 5.8 trillion rupees next year. “Despite Covid-19 pandemic, the government remained successful in bringing the economic growth rate close to four percent,” he said and added the growth rate will likely to remain around five percent during the next fiscal year.

He said the government does not believe in imposing new taxes to enhance revenue collection and the objective for higher collections will be achieved through expanding the tax net.

Tarin further said that we have decided to increase Public Sector Development Program by 38 percent, adding that we are also working to initiate the process of restructuring and privatization of loss making state owned enterprises.

However, now the government’s focus was on providing relief to the masses in the upcoming budget 2021-22 and that was why it was conveyed to the IMF in recent talks that the electricity and gas prices would not be increased, he added.

He said former finance minister Miftah Ismail of the PML-N, during his tenure, had raised the petroleum development levy up to Rs 30, while the present government had reduced it by Rs 2 to 3.

Today the circular debt was declining and the government would take more steps to further reduce it, he added.

The minister said it was the government’s top priority to alleviate poverty, by promoting skills development practices among 4 million families, besides providing them housing facilities and health cards.