Federal Cabinet removes Finance Minister Miftah Ismail’s name from ECL

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: Federal Cabinet on Wednesday removed Finance Minister Miftah Ismail from Exit Control List (ECL).

After the meeting, Miftah Ismail said fiscal deficit remained 1,600 billion rupees per annum on average during the last government of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, while the Imran Khan led-government took this figure to around 5,600 billion rupees. He said total debt of the country from 1947 to 2018 was 25,000 billion rupees, whereas PTI Government added 20,000 billion rupees to this debt in just three and half years.

Regarding power outages in the country, the Finance Minister said power plants with a capacity of 75,000 megawatts of electricity are lying closed due to inaptness and incompetence of the previous government.

Commenting on shortage of fertilizers, he said unfortunately agri-inputs and wheat were smuggled to other countries, causing shortage of the commodity in the country. He said the government has decided to constitute a commission to investigate this matter.

About the IMF programme, Miftah Ismail said he expressed the belief that he will successfully get this programme revived today. He said it is top priority of the government to put least burden on the common man, while reviving the IMF programme. He said the government is determined to bring budget discipline and present a pro-people budget to provide maximum relief to the masses. He said depreciation in rupee value will not be allowed and inflation will be brought under control.