Finance Minister Ishaq Dar rejecting Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) white paper has said that some things were shown contrary to the facts on the economic situation of the country.
Addressing a press conference along with federal ministers in Islamabad, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that PTI claimed that when the PML-N government ended in 2018 the financial debt was 7.6 percent of GDP which is completely wrong because the fiscal deficit was 5.8 percent.
Dar said that PTI also claimed that the fiscal deficit was increased from Rs3.7 trillion to Rs5.5 trillion in a single year by imposing taxes on 5.5 percent of GDP. He said that the fact was that in 2019 PTI increased its fiscal deficit by 7.9 percent while they left that deficit at 5.8 percent in 2019.
He said that the tax figures talked about by PTI were also understated as PML-N collected taxes of Rs3843.8 billion in FY18 while PTI collected taxes of Rs3828.5 billion.
Ishaq Dar said that the PTI claimed that the growth had gone down to 1.4 percent while inflation increased by 10.5 percent but these figures were also wrong because economic growth was 6.1 percent in 2018.
The Finance Minister said that, unlike the previous government, the present government collected Rs3,429 billion in six months. He said that the target was to collect 7,440 billion in taxes by June 30 of the fiscal year 2023.
