PML-N, PTI trade blame over debt burden.

ISLAMABAD -- The PML-N and the PTI continued to shift the blame on Sunday over each other's economic performance and the state of the country's external debt.

Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb had a dig at former finance minister Shaukat Tarin in a tweet, sharing a video clip of a press conference from a day earlier in which he said the PTI government had raised the country's debt by 76 per cent, and not 80pc, during its four-year tenure.

Referring to his remarks, Ms Aurangzeb said: 'At last, Shaukat Tarin has admitted that Imran Khan took out loans worth Rs20,000 billion during his four-year tenure, which is 76pc of the loans taken out in Pakistan's history. Imran sahib has to make many more such confessions.'

Separately, Finance Minister Miftah Ismail said in a tweet that the total public debt under PTI went from Rs24,953bn to Rs44,366bn, an increase of 78pc. Besides, total debt plus liabilities went from Rs29,879bn to Rs 53,544bn, an increase of 79pc. 'The PTI has added 79pc in 3.75 years of all debt plus liabilities added in the previous 71 years,' he said.

Marriyum says Tarin admitted previous govt's loans amounted to 76pc of total debt; Fawad says most of it was to pay for previous loans

Reacting to Ms Aurangzeb's remarks, PTI's Fawad Chaudhry said their government took out loans of $52bn, of which $38bn was to pay back the loans taken out by the previous governments. 'If you do not like the agreements made with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), why does the begging government go to the IMF board?' he asked.

In a later tweet, he gave a breakdown of the country's external debt, saying it was $45bn from 2008-09, $70.5bn from 2018-19 and $88bn until March this year.

The blame game came two days after the government presented the next fiscal year's budget aimed at fiscal consolidation as it tries to convince the IMF to restart much-needed financial support.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif described the budget as 'better' than the crippling economic situation the government inherited from the last PTI regime.

'Compared to the previous government...