Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has asked his ministers and counsels to let go of their hires, benefits and luxury buses and fly frugality class as part of an austerity drive aimed at saving the government Pakistani Rupee( PKR) 200 billion a time, Pakistan grounded Dawn review reported.
According to Dawn, the belt- tensing comes as the government is trying to renew a stalled loan programme of the International Monetary Fund( IMF) to secure finances worth USD 1 billion. The premier said an agreement with the Fund was in its final stages.
The expenditure cuts are part of an trouble to help an profitable extremity in the country. The State Bank’s foreign exchange reserves have fallen below a three- week import cover, and affectation remains constantly high.
” Far- reaching results of these( austerity) measures will come to the fore. We’ll save around over PKR 200 billion due to similar measures,” the high minister told journalists after a press meeting on Wednesday, Dawn reported.
Sharif said that though the measures would not give significant, immediate relief, they would give peole a sense that the government realised their pain and agony.
He said these measures would be enforced incontinently, adding that” fresh way” would be taken at the time of the budget for the new financial time.
Some of the opinions taken in the civil press meeting included the pullout of hires, security vehicles, gratuities and boons of press members; a ban on the import of luxury particulars and sanctioned vehicles for over a time; smaller foreign visits; a ban for press members on staying in five- star hospices; only one sanctioned plot for a government hand; dealing commodious houses given to government officers; the opening of government services at 730 am to save electricity and gas, etc, Dawn reported.
A 15 per cent cut in charges of government institutions and a reduction innon-combat expenditure of fortified forces, was also blazoned by the high minister.
The current situation in Pakistan is the most delicate faced by the country in the last two decades, the South Asia Press reported, adding that the country, facing an profitable extremity, political chaos, and a rising number of terror attacks along the northwestern areas, has been drained of its coffers. farther, according to the report, the country’s profitable deterioration has a direct impact on the public.
The cataracts in Pakistan came as a severe blow to the cash- strapped nation formerly scuffling with high debt, the South Asia Press reported, adding that the country’s planning commission, husbandry, food, beast, and fisheries sectors lost USD3.7 billion in the cataracts with long- term losses estimated to be around USD9.24 billion.
In December 2022, affectation in the country stood at24.5 per cent, nearly twice of12.3 per cent from the former time, the report said, adding that the common people were the most affected by the high flour prices amid the country’s worst- ever food extremity.( ANI)