ISLAMABAD, Sept 30: Senator Ishaq Dar, a former finance minister in the Nawaz Sharif government and parliamentary leader of PML-N in the Senate on Tuesday contested the government’s claim that it had reduced foreign debt by two billion dollars in the last three years.

He said the claim was controverted by the figures the government had itself provided to parliamentarians through question-answer documents which showed that the foreign debt outstanding on June 30, 2001, was $27.6 billion as against $30.4 billion on March 31, 2003 — an increase of $2.8 billion over two years.

Speaking at a joint news conference of the combined opposition in the Senate, Mr Dar said the official finance team led by Shaukat Aziz had miserably failed in managing the country’s debt and foreign exchange reserves.

It was a clear case of financial mismanagement and failure of this regime, said the PML leader.

He added that the defence budget, which stood at Rs124 billion in 1998-99, had swollen to Rs190 billion in 2003.