ISLAMABAD: The country’s two major opposition parties – PML-N and the PPP-- on Wednesday lashed out at the government’s economic policies and once again vowed to make every effort to block the passage of the upcoming federal budget from the parliament.

“We will try our best that the upcoming anti-people budget is not passed (from the National Assembly),” said PML-N leader and former finance minister Miftah Ismail while speaking at a news conference with party leaders Marriyum Aurangzeb and Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry.

Mr Ismail claimed that even the members of the PTI would not support the budget as they knew that Prime Minister Imran Khan had put the middle class and poor people of this country into huge trouble due to price-hike, inflation and unemployment.

Referring to the official figures of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the former minister claimed that the monthly Sensitive Price Indicator showed that there had been 17pc increase in the inflation in May this year as compared to the same month last year.

In April, he said, there was 21 per cent increase in the price hike.

Mr Ismail expressed the hope that newly-appointed Finance Minister Shaukat Tareen would talk to the International Monetary Fund for changing its programme for the country and said that his party was ready to assist Mr Tareen in this regard. He indirectly praised Mr Tareen, saying that previously there were IMF people sitting on both the sides, but now at least they had a minister who lived in Pakistan.

Mr Ismail claimed that the food inflation had not gone below 10pc in any month during the last two years. Similarly, he said, there had been an actual increase of 40pc in the electricity tariff.

The PML-N leader also crtiticised the government’s one-sided accountability.

Mr Ismail “challenged” the prime minister to show even a single school or hospitals built in Punjab.

Mr Ismail alleged that Imran Khan had brought the country to a stage where they would have to borrow money even for the country’s defence.

He claimed that 7.5 million people had been pushed below the poverty line by the present government. He also criticised the government’s agricultural policy.

Meanwhile, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari through a statement assured the nation that his party would be taking all the necessary steps required to thwart the conspiracy aimed at damaging the common man in the upcoming budget.

The PPP chairman pointed out that inflation in the country had already peaked at 20pc, according to the SPI index.

“By imposing heavy taxes in the budget, the PTI government wants to burden those who are receiving low salaries,” he said.

“Imran Khan is proving his enmity to the common people by giving amnesty schemes to the rich and collecting taxes from the poor,” he remarked.

“How can he sit by and watch thousands of his countrymen die of hunger? Our future generations will be ruined since many families can’t afford to educate them,” he said.

“We will not sit idly and watch PM Imran Khan present one failed budget after another. Mark my words, his name will go down in the history of his country for his economic crimes. The country will never forgive him,” he said.

“The puppet prime minister can get appreciation from his fans by manipulating the numbers, but the masses will not be fooled by the PM’s illusion of economic prosperity”, he added.

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2021