Pak oppn rejects PM’s offer of talks to revive economy
Pakistan’s main opposition party led by ousted premier Imran Khan on Monday rejected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s offer of holding a ‘grand dialogue’ among all stakeholders to fix the cash-starved country’s economic woes, saying the government was making ‘hilarious claims’ to hide its failures.
Prime Minister Sharif on Sunday emphasised the need for initiating a dialogue over vital sectors of the economy to move ahead on the path of progress and prosperity. Hours after the suggestion, the main opposition party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led by Khan said the offer for dialogue was made to hide the failures of the government.
PTI’s Central Information Secretary Farrukh Habib said in a video statement that the government in its first 50 days has flooded the nation with inflation. “Those who served as a curse to the poor people have laid the foundation of political and economic chaos in the country,” said Habib.
He said the current government made hilarious claims that it was fixing the economy when it was burdening the people with increases in fuel and electricity prices. “The main beneficiary of their grand dialogue will not be health, economy and education but Maqsood chaprasi (peon),” he said. The PTI has made Maqsood a household name by alleging that he served as a peon in one of the companies of Prime Minister Sharif and that his bank account was used for money laundering. Separately, PTI vice-chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi stated that the “grand dialogue” cannot be held with those “who have been imposed on the country”.