Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday that the PDM-led government will leave office on August 14.

Addressing a ceremony regarding Pakistan Education Endowment Fund in Islamabad on Wendesday, Shehbaz said it was up to the Election Commission of Pakistan to announce the date for general elections in the country.

He also added that the state of the economy was forcing him and his government to ask for loans across the world.

Shehbaz also said that while the International Monetary Fund agreement had provided much needed assistance to the country.

He expressed optimism that the executive board of the IMF will approve the staff level agreement between the global lender and Pakistan.

However, Sharif said that the IMF programme is not something to be proud of but is a time of “self retrospection”.

Later at another event, he said that Pakistan successfully negotiated a deal with the IMF due to the “prayers of thousands of Pakistani hajj pilgrims”.

He was addressing a ceremony where he laid the foundation stone of Shaheen Chowk Flyover at the junction of 9th avenue and Khayaban-e-Iqbal in Islamabad.

The project will be completed with a total cost of Rs1.7 billion and will take six months to become operational.

“We are praying that the executive board of the IMF will approve the agreement and then Pakistan will confidently take on the development path,” he added.

He lauded the leaders of the allied parties for compromising their politics to save the State.

The prime minister also criticised the PTI chairman for making hollow claims of development and tarnishing the image of Pakistan.

For him, the government was compelled to agree on a difficult IMF programme as the previous government’s policies had put the state on stake to save their political interests.

While the Sri Lankan president requested the IMF to help Pakistan avert default, the PTI chairman was wishing Pakistan to default similar to Sri Lanka, he said.

“We put our politics on stake and saved the state. This is the difference between Nawaz Sharif’s politics and the PTI chairman who is hell bent on opposing Pakistan,” Sharif stated.

He went on to add that despite a lower production of wheat and sugar, the former PTI government allowed the export of the commodities. “They [PTI] then imported both commodities and filled the pockets of exporters and imports while the poor were battered by the inflation.”

The premier said the coalition government along with the provincial government and Armed Forces of Pakistan, during the past one year, unveiled a project for revival of the economic development of the country and is successfully implementing it, which will steer Pakistan towards path of development again.