ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday strongly criticised the government for its “complete failure” to address Pakistan’s escalating energy and economic crises.
In a statement, Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram noted that in just over four years, the PMLN-led government had increased the average cost of electricity from Rs15-20 per unit (when Imran Khan left office) to over Rs60 per unit, which was the most expensive in the region.
He also billed the recent news conference by the power minister as a tone-deaf exercise filled with false claims and empty excuses that offered no relief to 250 million Pakistanis.
Waqas Akram “exposed” the government’s double standards on austerity. He noted that while Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif preached belt-tightening to the masses, he had sought relaxation of the federal honorarium policy to allow himself and the president to award unlimited payments to the staff in their offices, citing the “unique nature of work”.
Commenting on the minister’s load-shedding briefing, Waqas Akram said his assertion that the government had solved the issue “forever” was laughable in the face of the ongoing crisis. He pointed out that claims of zero daytime load shedding and a maximum of seven hours were blatantly false, with widespread unscheduled outages reported across Lahore, Punjab, Islamabad, Peshawar, and KP, where many feeders face 16 to over 22 hours of power cuts.
