{"id":16249,"date":"2023-05-19T19:44:52","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T14:44:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/?p=16249"},"modified":"2023-05-19T19:44:52","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T14:44:52","slug":"govt-unaware-of-full-scope-of-current-economic-crisis-miftah-ismail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/business\/govt-unaware-of-full-scope-of-current-economic-crisis-miftah-ismail\/","title":{"rendered":"Govt unaware of full scope of current economic crisis: Miftah Ismail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Govt unaware of full scope of current economic crisis: Miftah Ismail. Former finance minister Miftah Ismail said that the coalition government is unaware of the full scope of the current economic crises, emphasising that Pakistan has “been facing a crisis persistently,” media reported Friday.<\/p>\n

Miftah \u2014 while speaking during a pre-budget discussion at Salim Habib University titled ‘Pakistan\u2019s financial crisis and a way forward’ \u2014 said Pakistan\u2019s economic issues were not caused by the International Monetary Fund<\/a> (IMF), but rather by \u201cthe successive leaderships of the country\u201d.<\/p>\n

“Pakistan should not be where it is right now; two million shopkeepers pay Rs30,000 in taxes,” he said, warning that more economic issues will arise in the nation, and \u201cwe must draw lessons from them\u201d.<\/p>\n

Read more:\u00a0Pakistan faces default risk without IMF loan: Moody’s<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

‘Majority issues are self-inflicted’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Commenting on the delay in the revival of the IMF programme, he reiterated that Pakistan needs the IMF for the 24th time to avoid default.<\/p>\n

Miftah said: “Pakistan was going through a very difficult economic time and the nation does not have the resources to pay its debts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to go for an IMF programme, if we don’t go, we will default and no one in the world will give us loans,\u201d the former finance minister said.<\/p>\n

He said the majority of the issues are, in fact, self-inflicted; however, getting out of the economic spiral will take some time.<\/p>\n

Pointing to the lack of revenue, the former finance minister said that the country needed to take new loans to pay the interest on the previous loans.<\/p>\n

He added that when a country borrows to retire the previous loans, the debt of that country becomes unsustainable.<\/p>\n

Minimum wages must be raised<\/strong><\/p>\n

Regarding the upcoming budget, the former finance minister suggested that minimum wage \u2014 which is currently at Rs25,000 \u2014 must be raised to keep pace with the exorbitant inflation rate.<\/p>\n

“For the past 75 years, 90% of Pakistanis have experienced the effects of inflation; nevertheless, 10% of the middle class and elite today also experience price hikes,” he pointed out.<\/p>\n

Pakistan’s inflation, based on the consumer price index, increased to a record high of 36.4% in April from 35.4% in the previous month. The increase in inflation was due to higher food inflation amid currency devaluation.<\/p>\n

He noted that Pakistan has a higher inflation rate than India and Bangladesh. \u201cNot all inflationary pressures can be attributed to the increase in prices worldwide,\u201d he said, adding that Pakistan\u2019s policy decisions were flawed.<\/p>\n

Highlighting the need for increased provincial competition for better performance, the former finance minister demanded that more federal powers should be transferred to the provinces.<\/p>\n

He claimed that because the US adopted this strategy, its states\u2019 economies fared better.<\/p>\n

Miftah suggested that a meeting should be held between all the political stakeholders in Pakistan to discuss the best course of action to rescue the nation from this current economic crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Govt unaware of full scope of current economic crisis: Miftah Ismail. Former finance minister Miftah Ismail said that the coalition government is unaware of the full scope of the current economic crises, emphasising that Pakistan has “been facing a crisis persistently,” media reported Friday. Miftah \u2014 while speaking during a pre-budget discussion at Salim Habib […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":16250,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2666,1247,160,138],"class_list":["post-16249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-imf-programme","tag-international-monetary-fund","tag-imf","tag-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}