At least 77 per cent Pakistanis believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, whereas 23 per cent think there’s nothing wrong with Pakistan, said a survey by research company IPSOS.
According to The News, the survey was conducted in the first week of December and over 1,000 people participated in it. “The findings were released on Tuesday for the last quarter (Q4) of 2020 and compared with people’s responses from the same period a year ago,” it added.
Last year, 21 per cent people believed that Pakistan was on the right track, while 79 per cent contested this view.
This year, 36 per cent said that their current personal financial situation was weak, while 51 per cent said it was neither strong nor weak, and 13 per cent said they were in a strong financial position.
In comparison with the results of the last year, the people are in a better financial position: the data showed that 38 per cent believed that their financial situation was weak, 5 per cent viewed it as strong, and 57 per cent said it was okayish.
Meanwhile, on province-wise assessment, the report found that a “poor financial situation” featured in almost all the provinces and inflation ranked number 1 among the list of top four contributors.
“In Sindh, the second-highest contributor was viewed to be unemployment (20 per cent), followed by COVID-19 (17per cent) and poverty (16 per cent). In Punjab, 23 per cent people felt the province’s poor financial situation was due to unemployment, 8 per cent thought it was due to COVID-19 and 14 per cent believed poverty played a key role,” the newspaper stated.
Meanwhile, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa about 18 per cent believed the poor financial situation was the result of unemployment, 12 per cent viewed coronavirus and 8 per cent felt it was poverty that was behind the province’s financial situation.
Similarly, in Balochistan about 25 per cent responded by blaming unemployment, a mere 2 per cent felt COVID-19 played a role, and 25 per cent felt it was poverty that has led to the province’s dismal state of financial affairs, said reports.
