Current economic situation result of PML-N's bad policies: Tarin
The finance minister expressed the hope to achieve a target of revenue collection up to Rs 4700bn
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin on Thursday said that the current challenging economic situation being faced by the country was the result of wrong policies of the last Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government, which had caused a loss of $20 billion.
Addressing a virtual press conference flanked by Minister for Energy and Petroleum Hammad Azhar and Minister for Industries and Production Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar in Islamabad on Thursday, 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 said 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 finance minister expressed the hope to achieve a target of revenue collection up to Rs 4700 billion 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.
The Finance Minister 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 went on to say 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.
