ISLAMABAD: Hours after a team of ministers highlighted the two-year performance of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government on Tuesday, the opposition parties blasted the government’s policies in all the sectors and termed the present regime a “selected and hybrid government”.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shahbaz Sharif and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari took to Twitter to criticise the government’s performance, whereas the information secretaries of the two opposition parties held separate news conferences in Islamabad to do the same in which they presented a comparison between the present prices of sugar, petrol and wheat and their prices at the time of their previous governments.
The leaders of both parties expressed concern over the state of media in the country and said there had been no freedom of expression in the country and journalists were being forced to launch their own YouTube channels after losing their jobs. They once again accused the government of using NAB (National Accountability Bureau) for “political engineering and victimisation of the opponents”.
Shahbaz Sharif, who is also Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, in a series of tweets on his official social media account on Twitter said: “Two years of PTI government have been an unmitigated disaster. From foreign policy to economy to governance, IK’s [Imran Khan] mismanagement of national affairs has increased the woes of the masses manifold. People continue to pay heavy price for this failed experiment in political engineering.
PML-N, PPP term present govt ‘selected, puppet and hybrid’; Shahbaz, Bilawal take to Twitter to criticise PTI govt’s two-year performance
“In two years of the PTI government: GDP growth rate registered a massive decline from +5.8pc in 2018 to -0.45pc in 2020, rendering millions of people jobless and pushing many more below the poverty line. Prices of sugar, wheat and medicines almost doubled. Per capita income went down steeply.”
Assailing the government’s foreign policy, Mr Sharif mentioned the India’s annexation of occupied Kashmir and strained relations with Saudi Arabia as examples.
“Exports & tax collection have stagnated over the last 2 years. [The] govt has yet to surpass the tax & export targets achieved by the PML-N during its tenure. PTI has taken more loans in just 2 years than taken by PML-N during its full tenure. ‘Reforms’ in FBR is still a shallow claim,” Mr Sharif said in another tweet.
Mr Sharif said that “failure in critical areas of foreign policy could not be starker”.
“After 70 years, India had the audacity to annex Kashmir after IK hoped Modi would win elections. Work on CPEC was slowed down for a year. Relationship with key allies such as Saudi Arabia was subjected to controversy,” the opposition leader said.
Similarly, Mr Bhutto-Zardari tweeted: “2 years in power and Imran Khan has given us the worst economy in our country’s history, foreign policy failures from Kashmir to Saudi Arabia, democracy and human rights suffering, unemployment at an all time high, Transparency International has said corruPTIon is higher than before.”
Speaking at a news conference at Sindh House, PPP information secretary and MNA Dr Nafisa Shah and Senator Moula Bux Chandio, along with other party office-bearers and parliamentarians, lashed out at the government over the “unprecedented price-hike” in the country.
Dr Shah said the present government had destroyed all the institutions and it had committed a “treachery” with the country by damaging the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). She said the government had caused Rs90-100bn losses to the PIA so far and it was because of one statement that the aviation minister made in the assembly. She claimed that today even “the judiciary is under pressure”.
The PPP leader said the federal ministers always issued statements contradicting each other which proved that “it is a puppet government”.
Referring to the statement of Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari in which she had held the Foreign Office responsible for the country’s failure in highlighting the Kashmir issue, Dr Shah called the present cabinet a “cabinet of fools”.
Instead of doing legislation through parliament, she said, the government was doing it through ordinances. Dr Shah termed the PTI government “selected and hybrid one”, saying that due to its failure on all fronts, it was taking the support from NAB.
Senator Chandio said Prime Minister Imran Khan had even made the armed forces controversial by constantly stating that the army was with him. He said the army was with the people of Pakistan and not with one party.
In her press conference, PML-N information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb said the point of economic disaster, poverty and hunger this government had brought the people to over the last two years did not have an example in history.
“The way they (ministers and SAPMs) blatantly lied this morning [about the government’s performance] has no past example as well,” she said, referring to the government ministers’ presser.
“They started with a 90-day plan, then a 100-day plan, then a year and now two years have been completed and not even one promise or commitment has been fulfilled. The present government is still lying about each promise and taking U-turns on each commitment,” she said.
“This government has faced the worst failure in the shortest time. It is the story of remarkable failure of an unremarkable prime minister,” she added.
Ms Aurangzeb announced that her party would release a “fact sheet” highlighting the government’s failure in every sector at a news conference on Wednesday (today).
Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2020