Imran seeks debt relief to help Pakistan recoup

PM SAYS ECONOMIC CHALLENGES OVERWHELM HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Assistant Editor

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has renewed his call for debt-relief for the developing countries, including Pakistan, to cope with the Covid-19 challenges, including the economic difficulties and overwhelmed health care system.

“Pakistan is faced with two dilemmas. One, the growing Covid-19 cases and the second is starvation. We need to create a balance between controlling the spread of the virus and saving the people from starvation by opening up the economy,” Prime Minister Imran said while speaking the Covid Action Platform of the World Economic Forum via video link on Wednesday.

He said there should be a debt relief, as they needed fiscal space to divert their resources to the healthcare system, besides mitigating the economic effects of the lockdown.

Difficulties

The prime minister said the G-20 states had already come up with a policy of debt-relief for the developing countries and in that respect he held telephonic discussions with the leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia and Nigeria, who were also facing economic difficulties.

Prime Minister Imran’s call came as the Covid-19 infections in Pakistan trended higher in recent days and were approaching 50,000, official data showed, with total deaths crossing 1,000, as the government remained unsure over the consequences of its decision to end the nation’s lockdown.

Fearful of the economic and financial impact, and swayed by the acute hardship suffered by millions of poor families, Prime Minister

Imran Khan has defended the lifting of the lockdown last week, saying the virus spread has been well below projections, reported Reuters.

25 million daily wagers

Giving reasons behind lifting the lockdown, Prime Minister Imran said: “Pakistan’s 25 million workers are daily wagers, paid weekly or self-employed. Their livelihood has been affected by the lockdown. We started a Cash Transfer program to mitigate the effect of lockdown. So far we have touched 15 million families through our relief programme.”

The biggest challenge in Pakistan was how to mitigate the effects of lockdown; he said and mentioned that around 120 to 150 million people got affected due to the lockdown.

For a country of Pakistan’s size with population of over 220 million, levels of testing remains low at around 14,000 a day. However, the official data, suggest the infection rate has so far remained relatively steady, with total infections doubling every 9 to 11 days since April 1.