By Ajmal Khan Yousafzai
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan says the government has very little left to spend on the people because half of its revenue collections are being used for debt repayment.
In a Facebook post on Sunday, the prime minister said: “I am aware of the needs of the people, but when the ‘corrupt’ rule the country, the entire system under which people’s needs should be serviced is destroyed.”
“The government has ‘very little’ left to spend on the people due to half of its collections being used for debt repayment in the first year and in the second, even more than that due to accrued interest,” he said.
Prime Minister Khan asked: “If they don’t punish such people, what kind of example are we setting for our children? That the powerful can get away with anything and the jails are only for the poor?”
Days earlier, the premier had severely criticised opposition parties for what he termed their “double standards” and self-serving politics. Addressing a ceremony after laying the foundation stone of different projects including the university in Chakwal’s Balkassar, 500-bed hospital, law college, and Ring Road, he said those who are claiming to be ‘champions of the democracy’ are asking to overthrow an elected government.
Earlier November, Prime Minister Imran Khan said his government was removing impediments and red tape to make it easier for investors to make a profit in Pakistan, adding that the Pakistan of 2020 was “all about creating wealth” through industrialization.
Addressing the Country Strategy Dialogue (CSD) on Pakistan held by the World Economic Forum virtually, the premier recounted the economic challenges the PTI government inherited and what it was doing to tackle them, and expressed concern that the second wave of the coronavirus could spell more trouble for the country.
He said in the 1960s, Pakistan was a model for the developing world because of rapid industrialisation, but in the 1970s it became more socialist and “profit-making almost became a crime”.
