LAHORE, January 16: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said on Sunday that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, now living in the most expensive property in London, was directly responsible for the current inflation in the country. Talking to media here, the minister said that today, Pakistan took only Rs 6 trillion loan from 1947 to 2008 and strengthened armed forces, purchased Gwadar, built the capital city of Islamabad and the country became a nuclear power. He said that loan worth Rs 23 trillion was taken from 2008 to 2018 when the PPP and PML-N were in power. The minister said that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has to repay $ 55 billion loan in its five years tenure due to bad economic policies of the past regimes. So far, the PTI government had repaid $32 billion loan during past three years, he added and said that owing to the bad governance and plunder of the past rulers, the country was facing inflation today, how can we ignore them. “Those who fled after looting and plundering the national exchequer are now giving lectures on economy today,” Chaudhry Fawad stated. He said that the PPP had taken the right decision by stopping new gas schemes and at the end of its tenure in 2013, there was no revolving loan on gas. He said when Shahid Khaqan Abbasi left in 2018, he left a circular debt of Rs 197 billion on gas as the schemes he started require Rs 90 billion annually for completion. He said that some people had the perception that Imran Khan has lost popularity due to inflation but they were wrong as he has vote bank everywhere from Karachi to Khyber, Lahore to Peshawar, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. He said that elections would be held on 1100 national and provincial assemblies constituencies and there was no other party besides PTI that could field its candidates on so many seats. “PML-N is party of Punjab, PPP is of Sindh and JUI is of some areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” Chaudhry Fawad maintained. He said that when the elections time would come, the PTI leadership would show how elections were contested. The minister said that Imran Khan would form the government for next five years. The government has borne the health expenses of all journalists, providing state-of-the-art healthcare facilities to journalists, said Chaudhry Fawad. He said that the journalists and their families will be able to avail treatment facility up to Rs. 1 million per annum from any public or private hospital under the scheme which was launched by the Prime Minister. He opined that the private sector involve the in the health and education sectors was imperative to resolve the problems. The health card programme, he said will provide an opportunity for the private sector to invest in the health sector as the people wanted better treatment and health card will benefit middle and white collared class. He lamented that instead of starting such welfare schemes in Sindh, the provincial government was spending money on construction of private buildings. Fawad Hussain said that a doctor had been appointed in Karachi on a salary of Rs 7. 6 million which was regrettable as all hospitals and health system of Sindh had been ruined. He said that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government had decided to provide equal health facilities to all segments of the society. “We are providing equal treatment facility without differentiating between rich and poor,” said the minister. – NNI
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