Pakistan to default without IMF programme: Imran Khan

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan has warned that the country will enter default without the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, ARY News reported on Sunday.

While addressing a press conference alongside Sania Nishtar, Imran Khan said that the nation should brace for a new wave of inflation. He said that the government has no option other than approaching the IMF, otherwise, the country will enter default.

“I want to give a message to the nation in this difficult time. Nearly 750,000 Pakistanis left the country. I want to tell them to fight the crisis instead of leaving the country in a difficult time.”

Khan said that Germany and Japan had also faced difficult times but they unitedly fought the challenges and came out of crises.

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He urged the nation should fight the challenges. He added that ‘thieves’ have been imposed on the country and they will fight together to stop them.

Khan said that he is also facing threats to his life but he will never leave the country.

Imran Khan urged the nationals to stand against the current rulers as the PTI will bring a governance system based on the rule of law and justice to the country.

He slammed the rulers and said they dissolved their corruption cases after coming in power. The former premier criticised the ouster of the PTI government in April last year as it was a wrong decision as the government was performing excellently on the economic front.

He reiterated that fresh elections will bring stability to the country.

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Highlighting the PTI’s efforts for assisting the flood victims, Khan said that he collected donations to help the flood affectees. He detailed that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government constructed bunds (embankments) by spending millions of funds to stop the flooding of cities.

He added that Nowshera was protected from the floods due to the construction of embankments. Moreover, underground tanks were constructed in Lahore to clear the roads.

The PTI government had constructed Right Bank Canal to Sehwan but the canal project was not continued by the Sindh government which resulted in the flooding of several cities. Khan said that PTI had decided to distribute Rs1 billion in funds for the flood victims of Sindh but the provincial government is not providing the victims’ data.

Sania Nishtar said that Imran Khan had conducted three telethons for the collection of donations for the flood victims. She said that overall Rs4.6 billion are currently present in the bank account for the flood victims the details are also shared on the website.

“We have allocated Rs1 billion for Sindh and waiting for the data. The funds will be transferred to Sindh immediately after we get data of flood affectees from the provincial government. We have planned to distribute funds among 40,000 flood victims in Sindh.”

Nishtar clarified the variation in the number of funds collected from the telethons. She said, “People are questioning about only Rs4.6 billion funds despite the announcement of Rs15 billion. Some people announced to fund but they have to spend the money by themselves.”

Sania Nishtar said that the transactions worth Rs4.3 billion failed which were made by overseas nationals. She added that people in foreign countries faced difficulties to transfer funds to Pakistan, whereas, 15 per cent of transactions were cancelled due to non-completion of the verification process.

She said that the limit of a transaction was $10,000 in the telethon but an additional amount was transacted which result in blocking by the banks.