Lahore [Pakistan], March 26 (ANI): Former Pakistan Prime Minister and Pakistan Tehreeek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Saturday presented his party’s roadmap to revamp governance and increase exports thus paving the way for country’s economic prosperity, Pakistan based The Express Tribune newspaper reported. Khan was addressing a public rally at Lahore’s Minar-e-Pakistan despite a threat alert issued by the interim Punjab government.
Khan said that the country needs difficult decisions to be made to revamp governance and increase exports. Khan during his speech pointed out that Pakistan doesn’t collect sufficient taxes, resulting in an outflow of dollars that exceeds the inflow. He said that if exports increase, the inflow of dollars would also increase. He also urged the need for a complete revamp of governance to achieve economic prosperity.
The PTI chief said that a “surgery” was needed in Pakistan to put the house in order, and if that were done, overseas Pakistanis would bring their dollars to the country. He suggested incentivising overseas Pakistanis to invest and proposed VIP status for exporters.
According to The Express Tribune, Khan highlighted the IT and tourism sectors’ growth during his party’s tenure and emphasised increasing productivity in the agriculture sector. He also proposed restructuring all government corporations, including Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).
As per Khan, only 2.5 million Pakistanis out of 220 million people pay taxes. He talked about the need to increase the tax base to achieve progress, and PTI collected record taxes during its tenure. Khan also said that the PTI government introduced health cards, which the current government has stopped, but his party would revive the initiative.
He proposed giving loans to young people to start businesses and reviving the mortgage scheme, which the PTI government introduced for the first time in Pakistan‘s history. The former prime minister said the PTI’s focus is to target poor people and provide them with ration, a program that Sania Nishtar had introduced, according to The Express Tribune.
Earlier on Saturday, Khan urged his supporters not to back off “under any circumstance” and said that “reaction” to the “atrocities done to the PTI” would come from the public at the party’s Minar-e-Pakistan rally tonight amid a “threat alert” issued by the interim Punjab government, Pakistan based Dawn newspaper reported.
In the alert, the Punjab government said that terrorists carrying explosive material have reached Lahore and will either target political rallies or law enforcers deployed for the security of those events. The government placed containers on the way leading to Minar-e-Pakistan, leading to hurdles for people seeking to partake in the jalsa.
The PTI chief claimed that when he came into power in 2018, he had inherited a fragile economy but had turned it around, only to see his work undone by the present setup. Prior to the PTI rally, internet outage was reported in Lahore’s Gulberg, Minar-e-Pakistan, Data Darbar, Lari Adda and nearby areas. PTI also shared footage through party’s Twitter handle showing party workers and supporters had packed the venue in anticipation of Imran, who reached Minar-e-Pakistan a little before midnight. (ANI)
