Pakistan’s ruling Imran Khan government has broken all previous records in borrowing money merely in the first year of its tenure. According to the official data, during the one-year regime of the present government Rs 7,509 billion (Pakistani currency) increase was recorded in the total debt of the country. A report in the Pakistani media, citing sources, said the State Bank of Pakistan has sent this borrowing data to the Prime Minister’s Office. Between August 2018 and August 2019, the government has borrowed Rs 2,804 billion from foreign sources and Rs 4,705 billion from domestic sources, the report said. According to the State Bank data, a 1.43 per cent surge was noticed in the public debt of Pakistan in merely first two months of the current fiscal year. The debt of the federal government has reached to Rs 32,240 billion that was Rs 24,732 billion in August last year. The government’s tax collection in the first quarter of the current fiscal was Rs 960 billion while the target was Rs 1 trillion, the report said.
