Imran terms real estate sector ‘biggest mafia’

ISLAMABAD: Former premier and Pakistan Tehrik-e-insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has said that it was his mistake to give amnesty to the real estate sector that he now dubbed as the mafia.

“The real estate is the biggest mafia in Pakistan, as it grabs government land, sells it to the general public and then transfers the proceeds abroad. You can’t imagine how powerful they are,” Khan said while addressing a seminar via video link.

Cadastral mapping, which shows land records with boundaries in digital form, ordered by the last PTI government, showed land worth Rs1.2 trillion had been encroached upon by the land mafia in Islamabad alone.

“The situation is the same all over the country,” he said.

‘HEADING FOR A DEFAULT:’ Holding a free and fair election was a prerequisite for reviving the economy, which was “heading for a default,” he said. “Whichever government comes in ater the fresh election will have to take unprecedented decisions.”

Imran noted that political stability was necessary to achieve economic strength.

“The economy requires certainty. People don’t invest unless they’re able to predict what’ll happen going forward. Who can predict today what’ll happen after one month in Pakistan? Nobody knows,” he said while referring to the rising level of credit default swaps, an indicator of investors’ confidence in the country’s ability to pay back dollardenominated loans.

He also referred to a survey that said 88 per cent businessmen believed the economy was headed the wrong way.

“The only way to restore confidence is holding a fresh election,” he said.

Imran spent a large part of his speech highlighting the importance of exports for building a resilient economy that’s able to survive high growth rates while dodging the boom-bust cycle. He acknowledged his “mistake” of rolling out multiple amnesty schemes without making it mandatory that the whitened money should then be invested in the export-led industry to build dollar reserves.

Imran demanded the powers that be should explain their failure to foresee the economic disaster “that they caused” by staying “neutral” in the midst of an alleged regime change conspiracy.

“I sent Shaukat Tarin to tell the neutrals [establishment] that the direct impact of political destabilisation would be on the economy. The (economic) balance was already fragile,” he said.