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Former finance minister Shaukat Tarin has lashed out at finance minister Ishaq Dar, demanding his resignation for pushing Pakistan to the “brink of default” and causing “immeasurable sufferings” to the masses through his economic policies.
The claims made by Senator Dar regarding the state of the economy were refuted by Senator Tarin in a statement released in response to the finance minister’s press conference on Friday. Senator Tarin also stated that his party had hoped that Ishaq Dar “will do the honorable thing and hand over his resignation for misleading the nation.”
“Mr. Dar, who used to boast that he would lower the dollar rate to below 200, made no clarifications on the day [Friday] the exchange rate hit another new low of 262 to the US dollar. Because of his complete lack of even the most fundamental grasp of markets and economic policy, his disastrous “dollar peg” approach once again demonstrated why we think he is unsuited for the position,” Mr Tarin said while criticizing the PML-N leader.
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The central bank reserves have fallen to $3.7bn as of Jan 20 which is hardly three weeks of import cover, the senator said, adding that the economy is on the brink of a default with a seven per cent decline in exports, 11pc in remittances, and 59pc in foreign direct investment.
“Even our bilateral and multilateral development partners have refused to provide financial help to the disastrous policies of the PDM government,” Tarin said, adding that PML-N members, particularly former finance minister Miftah Ismail, also criticized Ishaq Dar for causing the nation to suffer a “huge loss.”
Claiming Mr Dar has a “poor understanding of economic policymaking”, the PTI leader claimed that during the 2013-2018 period, the economy paid a heavy price because of the ‘dollar peg’ with exports plummeting from $ 24.8bn in 2013 to $ 22bn in 2017.
“In 2022, the same experiment by Ishaq Dar resulted in the exports declining by 7pc. This clearly shows that Ishaq Dar has not learned any lessons from past mistakes and is unfit for this job,” he added.
