ISLAMABAD, March 26: The chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) economic coordination cell has criticized the government for what he said its failure to prevent the crash of the stock market. In a statement here on Saturday, Syed Naveed Qamar, MNA, also criticized the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and said it watched the stock market ballooning artificially. He said major players of the market as well as financial institutions had been manipulating the artificial hype created to lure in widows, pensioners and other small investors. “They poured in their life savings into the equities only to see them being swallowed by the big fish in the market. A day did not pass when the president or his army of ministers did not gloat over the ‘boom’ in the market as a sign of economic miracles being performed by the financial wizards of the regime,” said the statement.
A stock market gone out of control is not only dangerous for domestic investors but also gives an image of immaturity to foreign investors. “We should not have celebrated the fastest growing market in the world when we were aware that this growth was not based on sound footings.”
He said government functionaries alleged to have been hand in glove with the sharks playing the market should be brought to book and made to pay for the siphoning of funds of small investors.
He said heads must also roll in the SECP and the ministry of finance as they had failed to ward off the disaster.
Mr Qamar said that while in the past the government had acted through its financial institutions to give a feel-good image artificially, now it must use the same institutions to bring stability to the market.
Not only will that prevent the small investors from being wiped out, but it will also help the ongoing privatization programme of the government. Unless confidence is restored, the government will not be able to bring more scripts to the stock market, he added.
