Lahore [Pakistan] : Pakistan’s opposition leader in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif has slammed the Rs 120 billion “relief package” announced by Prime Minister Imran Khan and called it a “pack of lies”, reported a local media. “Like promises and budget the so-called relief package of the incumbent government is also a pack of lies,” Dawn quoted Sharif as saying. “Had it not been claimed while announcing the [federal] budget that it’s a tax-free budget? Now it’s being confessed in the [prime minister’s] address to the nation that petrol prices will have to be raised,” said Sharif, who is also president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). The opposition leader further asked the Imran Khan government about how it is planning to control the righting inflation in the country, if the electricity, gas tariffs and prices of petroleum products shoot up, reported the newspaper. He further called the budget statistics of the Imran Khan government “untrustworthy”. Stating that the conditions set by the IMF to seek further loans for the country have “crushed” the masses, Sharif said that the country has been overburdened by the debt. President Shahbaz Sharif further lashed out at Prime Minister Imran Khan-led ruling PTI government over inflation and said the country is undergoing a sugar crisis because the current stock of the sweetener would only last 15 more days. “[Despite the crisis], the PM has nothing better to do than rendering lip services through his speeches,” Geo News quoted Shahbaz as saying. He said that the price of sugar increased by Rs 5 per kilogram, taking the rate in the wholesale market beyond Rs 130 per kg. “Relief and PTI are two contradictory things,” said Shahbaz as he rejected PM Imran Khan’s relief package. Earlier, the opposition parties described the relief package announced by Imran Khan as the “biggest and historic fraud” with the nation and asked him to step down if he really wants to provide relief to the masses, local media reported. Hours after Imran Khan’s address to the nation, PML-N information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb through a statement asked Khan to resign for “lying on national television and announcing a fraud package to fool the nation”. She said this was a Takleef (pain) Package and not a relief package. She ridiculed the claim that it was a historic package and said the only thing historic was that it was a “historic fraud,” Dawn reported. “The only public announcement that would help solve the crisis created by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) would be corrupt, incompetent and clueless Imran Khan’s resignation,” she said. Meanwhile, Sherry Rehman, the PPP parliamentary leader in Senate, in her statement said “the blame minister of Pakistan” had given a “bizarre speech” where he said unprecedented inflation, a tsunami of oil, gas prices and other essential items was because of past governments and the international market, Dawn reported.
