ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peo­ples Party (PPP) chairman Bila­wal Bhutto-Zardari has claimed that the upcoming federal budget will be dictated by the International Monetary Fund and it will serve IMF’s interests, instead of Pakistani people.

“The PPP is fully prepared and determined to thwart the PTIMF budget in parliament,” he declared in a statement issued here on Saturday, almost two weeks prior to the presentation of the federal budget in the National Assembly.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari said the passage of the IMF-proposed budget would be tantamount to undermining the freedom and integrity of the country and the PPP could not, in good conscience, allow “the puppet PTI government to make Pakistan a vassal state”.

He said “selected Prime Minister Imran Khan” was always fond of proclaiming that Pakistan was on the verge of an economic miracle in the coming year, “but the year comes and goes and we are left stuck further in the quagmire of inflation, debt and economic decline”.

The PPP chairman questioned how an “anti-people selected government” could manage to bring about any positive change in the lives of the people when it served the IMF’s interests.

“How shamelessly will the selected PM present his budget as a positive for Pakistan?” he asked, adding that levying heavy taxes on the already poverty-stricken masses to fill the exchequer would not lead to real economic growth. He said plunging Pakistan further into debt with no plan for true growth would never lift the economy from ruin.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari said for all the tall claims of growth, the common man was still unable to buy food or medicine. The talk of growth was tantamount to pouring salt on the wounds of the millions of Pakistanis who had been pushed by the government below the poverty line, he added.

“The selected PTI-led federal government now has a history of extorting money from the masses while it allows its cronies in and out of government to plunder the state. This selected federal government favours the elite with amnesty schemes while it deprives the people of their right to live with dignity,” he said, adding that every policy of the federal government had served the interests of its crony capitalist backers.

On the other hand, he said, his party had worked to protect the rights of the people and it had always formulated policies it believed were in the best interest of the people.

“The PPP will always fight for the rights of the people at every forum,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2021