New govt should have purchased cheap oil from Russia: Tarin.

ISLAMABAD -- Former finance minister and senior PTI leader Shaukat Tarin Wednesday said that the coalition government "should have purchased cheap oil from Russia" as the previous Imran Khan-led government had already written a letter in this regard.

Addressing a press conference flanked by his former spokesperson Muzzamil Aslam, Tarin lamented that the matter with Russia "was not taken forward".

'They have taken a step back into purana Pakistan and haven't taken any concrete decisions in the last six weeks,' he said, highlighting that amid the "indecisiveness", the rupee lost its value against the US dollar.

"Our [PTI government's] approach was progressive while theirs is in line with purana Pakistan," he said.Imran Khan's stance regarding an alleged 'foreign conspiracy', Tarin claimed that soon everybody will know whose hand is behind the economic instability.

'The government is taking one step forward and two backwards,' Tarin said, criticising them for their "poor management".

Regarding the broad agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, the PTI leaders said that the federal budget announced by Finance Minister Miftah Ismail on June 10 was a "mere formality" with a '5.5% growth rate and provisional surplus of Rs800...