Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan announced a nationwide protest against rising inflation in the nation. The ex-prime minister urged protesters to join him on Sunday evening to voice their protest against the government and the rising fuel prices.
“I am inviting the entire nation for a peaceful protest against inflation. I invite trade unions, professionals, doctors, engineers, clerks, and government workers to take to the streets,” Khan said in a message posted on his social media accounts.
Imran Khan said that he will address the protesters at 10pm and said people who blamed his party for economic incompetence are have now been proved inefficient.
“We had kept diesel prices lower deliberately in our tenure and were being sold at Rs145 per liter. We were also asked by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to end subsidies, but we provided relief to the people from rising inflation,” Khan said. He said that fuel prices increased by Rs 85 in the last two months.
However, according to news reports and the IMF, it was Imran Khan’s economic measures that stalled the IMF bailout of $6 billion dollars as it said that fuel prices have to be raised to secure a bailout.
Pakistan finance minister Miftah Ismail said that the IMF staff-level agreement could be signed within the end of June.
“I hope that this budget… will be acceptable to the [IMF] as long we are resolute in making sure that we don’t continue with subsidies on diesel and petrol and go ahead with positive taxation for which we have set ambitious targets in the budget,” Ismail was quoted as saying in an interview with the Dawn.
Ismail also said that the PTI government did not attempt to bring people under the tax net while explaining the move behind taxing shopkeepers and providing relief to the working masses and the salaried class.
“We are trying to ignite the economic engine not by making the rich richer but by empowering the poor economically who consume local production,” Ismail was quoted as saying by news agency the Dawn.
He further added the previous policies made the rich only richer as the elite would spend primarily on imported items and often direct their investments overseas.
(with inputs from ARY News, the Dawn and ANI)
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