Chandigarh, August 16, 2022 (Yes Punjab News)
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said Punjab finance minister Harpal Cheema was trying to mislead Punjabis by twisting financial data to cover up the abject failures of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, even as it asked it to give an account of the money spent by it in the last five months.
In a statement here, SAD senior leader Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said it was shocking that the finance minister along with four other ministers had tried to befool Punjabis by changing the laws of economics to suit their petty political purposes.
“The finance minister has claimed that the State has repaid a debt of Rs 12,339 crore in the last five months. The truth is that Punjab has accumulated a total debt of Rs 36,068 crore and was supposed to repay an amount of Rs 15,025 crore in the last five months. So it is clear that the State government has defaulted on repaying the proportionate debt”.
Dr Cheema said this was not all. “While the AAP government has failed to pay the complete five month debt, it has taken a further loan of Rs 10,000 crore. This means it has basically taken a new loan to repay the old one because it has nothing to show by way of capital expenditure”.
The SAD leader said it was also galling that the finance minister has proudly claimed that the AAP government had registered a 24 per cent increase in GST and a 43 per cent increase in excise collections in the last five months. “Where has the money gone since the AAP government has failed to repay the entirety of the Rs 15,025 crore due from it and has even taken a loan of more than Rs 10,000 crore in the last five months alone”.
Asking the finance minister to come clean instead of trying to befool Punjabis, Dr Cheema asked him to give an account of money spent on capital expenditure as well as that spent to recycle old schemes like Sewa Kendras and multi-crore advertisements across the country.
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