ISLAMABAD, June 3: Describing the PPP-led government as extremely corrupt, PML-N president Nawaz Sharif said on Sunday that the regime’s corruption had stunted the economic growth of the country.

However, he was hopeful of the country’s economic recovery in future.

“The Asian Tiger vision for the country, launched by us when we were in power is very much alive,” the PML-N chief said and claimed that his party would act upon it whenever they came to power.

The PML-N leader was speaking at a seminar titled “Pakistan Economy — from Present Crisis to Growth and Prosperity,” organised by his party.

Mr Nawaz termed the federal budget 2012-13 a jugglery of figures with no incentives for the poor masses of the country. He rejected privileges announced in the federal budget 2012-13 for sitting president, prime minister and their predecessors.

“I will not avail of these privileges. I demand that this amount be given to the poor masses,” the PML-N leader said and recalled `achievements’ made by his government.

The PML-N president said the current rulers did not have even the basic knowledge of issues faced by the masses.

“They do not even know the basics to govern a country and to respect the public money. They are spending time on foreign visits at taxpayers’ expense,” he said.

The PML-N leader claimed that policies of his previous government had even been admired by the Indian government at that time and it had shown keen interest in reforms introduced in Pakistan when he was the prime minister.

Referring to the power crisis, Mr Nawaz said the government had failed to overcome the crisis. “They just give deadlines to end the crisis, but practically do nothing to ease the situation,” Mr Nawaz said, adding: “If our government would not have been toppled, policies that we initiated would have managed to end the energy shortfall that we face today.”

Earlier, Senator Ishaq Dar, the Leader of Opposition in the Senate, said the country was facing severe economic crisis because of bad policies of the present government, adding that only financial discipline could bring order.

“Loadshedding can be put to an end within a year if financial discipline is applied and we believe that resolution of the circular debt could add 2,000MW in the system,” he said.

Senator Dar said the government was in position to tackle this problem in the coming fiscal year as the amount allocated for projects in the power sector would only generate 500MW of electricity compared to the current shortfall of 8,000MW.