Pak deletes 'War on Terror' chapter from Economic Survey to avoid embarrassment

The chapter 'war on terror' was deleted at the last minute before the launch of Economic Survey of Pakistan 2012-13 owing to bloated figures.

Pakistan Finance Minister Ishaq Dar claimed that the colossal financial losses suffered by the economy over the fiscal year were not credible figures and in order to save Pakistan from the potential embarrassment of providing false information, the chapter was removed, reports Express Tribune.

According to the report, Dar claimed that initially the figures provided to him were between 80 to 100 billion dollars but later the officials calculated the losses to be of 125 billion dollars.

The 'bloated figures' as claimed by Dar, were compiled by an inter-ministerial committee of the ministries of foreign affairs, finance, interior, commerce and representatives of Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The report said that Pakistan suffered the highest amount of losses worth 68 billion dollars in the fiscal year 2010-11 along with other fatalities of citizens and security personnel.

The previous Pakistan government of PPP (Pakistan Peoples Party) had decided to drop the chapter on war losses for the fiscal year 2011-12 until the current finance ministry decided to include but again with its last minute withdrawal, the report added.