Pakistan has gone bankrupt, according to former Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) chairman Shabbar Zaidi. He further said that the Imran Khan government's claims of the country doing very well and achieving great were all wrong. In a recent speech at Hamdard University, Zaidi said that it is better to accept that Pakistan's economy has gone bankrupt and find solutions rather than deceive people by claiming that it is doing well. After his bold statement stirred a row on social media, Zaidi claimed that his words were taken out of context and had been misreported.
Key points
1. “Pakistan as an entity is bankrupt. As we say in accountancy, it’s not going concern in today’s position. We say that everything is good, we brought ‘Tabdeeli’ (change) but this is wrong, in my view, the country in this moment is bankrupt,” Shabbar Zaidi said.
2. He further added that the country needed to accept it was moving towards bankruptcy rather than keep saying that “we’ll do this or that” implying that political rhetoric by leaders amounted to betraying people.
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3. Responding to the statement made by former FBR chairman, a spokesperson for the Finance Minister, Muzzammil Aslam said that the country had gone bankrupt twice and that was in 1998-99 during PML-N’s tenure and in 2009 during PPP’s tenure.
4. However, Zaidi denied the media reports later on and said that his statement was being misreported by the media. As per him, he had only said that the current account and fiscal deficit issues were showing a situation like bankruptcy.
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5. Shabbar Zaidi remained the chairman of the Former Federal Board of Revenue, from May 10,2019 to April 8, 2020.
