He noted that the official investigation deliberately skipped the critical period of 2022 and 2024.
Sheikh Waqas Akram said the first phase of the civil disobedience movement is underway and it targets Pakistanis living abroad. PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
LAHORE:
PTI Central Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram claimed that nine million more people had been pushed into poverty in Punjab while the government spent Rs 11 billion on a luxury plane.
He warned that the free fall of the country’s economy would continue until the public mandate was restored.
In a hard-hitting statement, Sheikh Waqas claimed that there was a glaring and suspicious black hole in the government’s data timeline.
He noted that the official investigation deliberately skipped the critical period of 2022 and 2024, jumping straight from 2019 to 2025 and aggregating six years of data in a calculated attempt to cover up the economic devastation unleashed during the PDM’s first term.
The PTI leader claimed that the omission was deliberate, pointing out that the government had concealed the 2022-2023 figures because their transparent release would have shown that under the Imran Khan-led PTI government, the economy remained stable and achieved growth of around 6% despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said these hard-won gains were systematically dismantled by the current leadership after overthrowing the successful PTI government through “a conspiracy for regime change”.
He sharply criticized the government, accusing it of orchestrating a planned humanitarian disaster through incompetence, incompetence, short-sightedness and selfish royal behavior, which he said had plunged millions of Pakistani families into hunger and despair amid grinding inflation and sharp erosion of public purchasing power.
Sheikh Waqas said the economic devastation was reflected in the government’s recently released poverty survey. “The figures published by the Ministry of Planning are not mere statistics; they constitute an indictment against the PDM-2 regime,” said Sheikh Waqas.
“In just a few years, this government has reversed hard-won economic progress under the Imran Khan-led PTI government.” He highlighted that the national poverty rate increased from 21.9% in 2018-19 to 28.8% in 2024-25.
