'Govt sleeps, nation weeps': Bilawal slams PM Imran Khan for growing hopelessness in Pakistan
Aug 04, 2021
Islamabad [Pakistan], August 4 : Pakistan People's Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Wednesday blamed the Imran Khan-led government for growing hopelessness in the country and targeted the Prime Minister for benefitting rich cronies.
"The government sleeps while the nation weeps, as the selected government and prime minister are busy benefitting from their rich cronies and do not care about the poor," he said in a statement criticising the government for its economic policies, reported The News International.
Pakistan has been witnessing high unemployment, poverty and inflation for several months.
Bilawal said he felt for the poor countrymen suffering from acute poverty, unemployment and price hike of the daily use commodities.
He said the "selected" thought the country could be run by opening shelters and food trucks but were unable to comprehend the difficulties faced by the common salaried population.
"The common people are finding it enormously difficult to stay afloat economically and raise their children," he said.
On July 15, the government had increased the price of petrol by Rs 5.40 per litre and that of diesel by Rs 2.54 per litre. The prices of kerosene and LDO were also raised by Rs 1.39 and Rs 1.27, respectively as reported by The Express Tribune.
Apart from petrol, the price of food items including sugar, wheat flour has also been increased in Pakistan.
The World Bank (WB) has estimated that poverty in Pakistan has increased from 4.4 per cent to 5.4 per cent in 2020, as over two million people have fallen below the poverty line.
Using the lower-middle-income poverty rate, the World Bank estimated that the poverty ratio in Pakistan stood at 39.3 per cent in 2020-21 and is projected to remain at 39.2 per cent in 2021-22 and might come down to 37.9 per cent by 2022-23, reported The News International.
