Federal Finance Min­ister Ishaq Dar  strongly reject­ed the local media reports about the government’s in­structions to the au­thorities to stop sal­aries and pensions immediately due to the prevailing eco­nomic situation of the country.

Dar swiftly reacted to a story published in an English newspaper said on Twitter, “Fake news and spreading the same cause harm to the national eco­nomic interests. Kindly refrain from circulat­ing such reports/news with­out verifying same from the concerned ministry!” Earli­er, the Ministry of Finance issued a rebuttal maintain­ing that rumours about the government’s instructions to stop pays and pensions etc, were completely false. “This is completely false as no such instructions have been giv­en by the Finance Division, which is the concerned fed­eral ministry. AGPR has con­firmed that pay and pension have already been processed and will be paid on time. Fur­ther, other payments are be­ing processed as per rou­tine,” a press release of the finance division said. There were certain rumours doing rounds that the government had instructed to stop such payments. The clarification comes after the media report claiming that the Accountant General of Pakistan Reve­nue (AGPR) had been told by the finance ministry to “stop clearing all federal ministries and attached department’s bills until further orders”. “Even the clearance of salary bills has also been stopped,” claimed the report, which quoted “top official sourc­es” as saying that “operation­al cost-related releases faced difficulties mainly because of lingering financial difficulties being faced by the country.”