Desperately broke, Pakistan puts its Prime Minister's official residence up for rent

In a huge embarrassment for Imran Khan, the Pakistan Prime Minister's official residence has now been put up for rent. The Pakistan Federal Cabinet has now decided to allow people to hold cultural, fashion, educational and other events at PM Imran Khan's official residence. 

Pakistan Prime Minister's official house put on rent

After it was decided to put up the Pakistan Prime Minister's house on rent, two committees have been formed for this purpose. The Pakistani media further informed that these two committees will be responsible for ensuring the discipline and decorum of the Prime Minister's residence is not violated during the events. 

In 2018, the ruling Tehreek-Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party had announced that the Pakistan PM will vacate the lavish PM’s residence in Islamabad and the house will be turned into a campus of a postgraduate institute. In an attempt to cut down on heavy costs and use the money for welfare schemes, the PTI government had announced that Imran Khan will not live in the PM House and governors will not stay in Governor Houses.

Following this announcement, Prime Minister Imran Khan had decided to move out of the Prime Minister's residence. Currently, Imran Khan is living at his Bani Gala residence and only uses the PM office. 

On Aug 19, 2018, Prime Minister Imran Khan had said, “I think we should convert it (the 1100 canals building) into a high standard university, which will conduct research and invite the world’s greatest scholars here.”

However, now the PTI government has taken a U-turn from Imran Khan’s announcement and decided to rent out the PM’s House to make it a source of permanent income. The Pakistani government had earlier raised money in the exchequer by selling valuable vehicles and buffaloes raised at the Prime Minister’s House.

Pakistan mired in debt, forced to put its terrorists under sham arrests to convince FATF

Pakistan's external debt is likely to increase in the future as it is currently under the compulsion to borrow more every year to replay its outstanding external loans, finance its current account, and build its forex reserve. As per Dawn, in the last 15 years, Pakistan's external debt and liabilities have grown and no efforts have been made by its government in containing the exponential increase in the burden. 

This is evident from the over 150 per cent growth in foreign debt and liabilities to USD 116.3 billion from USD 45.4 billion at the end of Financial Year 2008. Moreover, Pakistan purchased nearly 63 per cent more debt or USD 12.13 billion in the first 11 months of the outgoing fiscal year compared to USD 7.4 billion the government had borrowed during the same period last year. As such, Imran Khan has been running pillar to post, to the Saudis, to world bodies like the IMF and others in an effort to waive debt or restructure it. It has also ceded a large part of its country to China in the name of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which has been touted as Pakistan's economic saviour to such an extent that it's become somewhat of a running joke.

(Image: AP, Twitter-@minhaskh)