ISLAMABAD: PTI Central Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram alleged on Wednesday that the government lacked both the will and the capacity to steer the country out of its current quagmire.

He also criticised the possible reshuffling of judges of the Islamabad High Court to other high courts without consent, following the controversial 27th Constitutional Amendment, which was “solely done to pack the court with favoured judges”.

Akram claimed that PTI founder Imran Khan would not have remained in prison for even an hour under a truly independent judicial system.

However, Akram vowed that PTI and the nation would not allow the politicisation and weakening of state institutions.

Turning to the economy, Akram said the government’s performance could be judged by declining exports, historically low investment levels, and rising poverty and unemployment.

In a separate statement, the PTI condemned the Punjab Assembly’s abrupt reversal of the agricultural income tax hike notifications, denouncing it as a “deplorable exhibition of political expediency, flagrant constitutional manipulation, and a profound betrayal of parliamentary supremacy and legislative dignity”.

The PTI declared: “On April 21, [Punjab Assembly] Speaker Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan delivered a landmark and principled ruling, declaring the Punjab government’s notifications revising agricultural income tax rates illegal, unconstitutional, and void ab initio.

He rightly affirmed that the exclusive authority to impose or alter taxes vests solely in the elected legislature, not in the executive or bureaucracy through arbitrary notifications.”

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2026