ISLAMABAD, June 5: Former Finance Minister and Member of the National Assembly Naveed Qamar on Sunday termed the Economic Survey 2004-05 figures “bogus”, saying inflation was still in double digits, unemployment never came down and more and more people had plunged into the vicious circle of poverty. Speaking at a press conference at the PPP Media Office, Mr Qamar said he was expecting the repetition of the same “fudged and bogus” figures by the government’s economic managers in the federal budget to be announced on Monday.

According to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), inflation had touched the figure of 11 per cent in the first nine months of the current fiscal year and could even go up.

Whereas, the government showed the inflation figures as 9.4 per cent which could never be believed as factual, he said.