Country has gone bankrupt, says former chairman FBR Shabbar Zaidi

KARACHI: Making a bombshell disclosure, former Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) chairman Shabbar Zaidi has stated that the country has gone bankrupt on Thursday. 

Addressing a ceremony, Shabbar Zaidi said, “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.”

The former FBR chairman held that the country needed to decide that it was moving towards bankruptcy rather than saying that “we’ll do this or that” implying that political rhetoric amounted to betraying people.

Responding to the statement of ex-FBR chairman, a spokesperson for the Finance Minister, Muzzammil Aslam countered Zaidi’s claim saying 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.

اگر میری یاداشت سہی ہے تو پاکستان دو دفعہ دیوالیہ ہوا۰ پہلی دفعہ PMLN دور میں جب 1998-99 میں فارن کرنسی اکاؤنٹ فریض ہوئے۰ اور دوسری دفعہ 2009 میں PPP نے اسٹاک مارکیٹ فریض کی تھی۰ البتہ 2018 میں PTI کو دیوالیہ معیشت ملی نہ قرض اتارنے اور خسارہ کے پیسے۰ کرونا کے باوجود ریکارڈ زخائر https://t.co/fdCZIgwava

— Muzzammil Aslam (@MuzzammilAslam3) December 15, 2021

Later in his statement on social media, Shabbar Zaidi said that his statement was being misreported in a private university.

According to the former FBR chairman, he had only said that the current account and fiscal deficit issues were showing a situation like bankruptcy.

It is pertinent to mention here that Shabbar Zaidi was the chairman FBR from May 10, 2019 to April 8, 2020 in the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan.