ISLAMABAD    -   Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Miftah Ismail said Saturday that the real freedom means eco­nomic self-reliance, without which the concept of freedom and self-reliance is not achieved. The PTI government took 79pc external debt out of the total debt taken in the coun­try’s history, he said. The fed­eral minister said this in a live press conference at Pakistan Television. The finance minis­ter said, during the PTI tenure Pakistan’s imports jumped up to US$80 billion while the trade deficit reached at $48 billion, which is a record in the country’s history. Miftah wondered how PTI could talk about real freedom without achieving economic self-suf­ficiency. He said that former finance minister Shaukat Tarin’s Saturday’s press con­ference differs from the facts.Miftah said that the former PTI government was lead­ing the country towards de­fault and the Muslim League government under the lead­ership of Prime Minister, Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif saved it country from bank­ruptcy. The minister said “we have saved the country from a situation like Sri Lan­ka, where petrol and gas are blacking out”. He said that PTI made agreements with the IMF to make electricity and oil more expensive, the ef­fect of which continued even during our government’s ten­ure. PTI government raised Rs 19,000 billion rupees in loans during their tenure, he added. The minister criti­cised the role of PTI and said that the country was passing through a critical juncture af­ter floods while the PTI were busy in their politics altering national interest. Miftah said that former Prime Minister Imran Khan did not fulfill any of his promise including con­struction of 5 million houses