Islamabad: A couple of days back, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said, “The biggest problem is that the government doesn’t have enough money to run the country. The rising foreign debts and low tax revenue has become an issue of national security.”
For the first time ever, Pakistan’s total debt and liabilities crossed 50.5 trillion Pakistani rupees (PKR) – approximately $283 billion. It is an addition of PKR 20.7 trillion under the current government alone, Pakistan-based newspaper Express Tribune reported citing SBP data.
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Imran Khan said, “We don’t have enough money to run our country due to which we have to borrow loans.” A day after Khan described the increasing debt as a “national security issue,” the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) released the debt figures till September 2021.
Two days after Khan’s ‘don’t have money’ remark, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rejected Pakistan’s borrowing request as it turned down the Pak government’s proposal to allow it to take loans equal to 2 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in a fiscal year.
In a written reply to a question, the house was informed that the exchange rate depreciation added around PKR 2.9 trillion (20 percent of the increase) in public debt while the government paid PKR 7.5 trillion against interest servicing which is 50 percent of the increase in the total public debt, reported The News International, which is one of the largest English language newspapers in Pakistan.
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