Dr Raheeq Ahmad Abbasi, Secretary General of Minhaj-ul-Quran International, has expressed his dismay over the government’s inability to turn the national economy around through the broad-based structural reforms. He said that as a result of the government’s policies, the people have been pushed in the deep abyss of poverty, skyrocketing inflation and increasing unemployment.

The present political administration, he added, has done little to address the raging contemporary economic problems and appears to have no long-term agenda in this regard. “The ruling elite is more interested in getting loans to account for their luxuries than going austere, and are not ready to cut down on their expenditures in view of severe economic difficulties,” he held.

Dr Raheeq Abbasi expressed these views while talking to a delegation of senior bankers who called on him in his office in Lahore the other day.

He said that due to economic mismanagement, the international community did not put enough cash on the table for the relief and rehabilitation of the flood victims. The twin scourges of terrorism and the worst energy crisis have been instrumental in shutting down the industry and businesses leading to job layoffs of hundreds of factory workers and the government has done nothing to reform the power sector.

He also criticized the Finance Minister’s Washington visit to seek fresh loan arrangement from the IMF, saying that in the absence of domestic solution to our economic ills, the temporary Oxygen provided by the international financial institutions has pangs attached to it for the people who have to pay heavy price for the decisions taken without their concurrence.

He said that the focus on agriculture can provide us with the much needed breathing space in terms of job creation and production of food stuff for export provided the government takes urgent steps for its revitalization. He said that the pushing up of food inflation for a predominantly agricultural country is a slap on our face. He asked the government to focus its undivided attention on the reform of economy.