Opposition, treasury benches slam govt for ignoring various sectors

NAVEED BUTT & AAMIR SAEED

ISLAMABAD: Members of both opposition and treasury benches in the National Assembly on Thursday criticized the government for ignoring education, health, agriculture, environment and water sectors in the budget for fiscal year 2018-19.

They said the government should have made sufficient allocations in the budget for the sectors that directly cater to needs of common people instead of exaggerating figures and presenting a ‘feel-good picture.’

Taking part in the budget debate, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf member Asad Umar highlighted loopholes in the budget and urged the government to review its priorities.

He said the agricultural growth has gone down during the tenure of the present government to the level that it is being recorded lowest in the last 50 years.

Umar accused the government of ignoring the unanimous recommendation of National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance for lowering the interest rate on agricultural loans to a single digit.

Talking about taxes on edibles, he said the government is charging Rs 19 per kilogram tax on sugar, 45 percent tax on powdered milk while duty on import of cooking oil is increased by 30 percent on a liter and petroleum levy is increased from Rs 8 to Rs 30 per liter.

He said the ratio of direct taxes has decreased from 1.8 percent to 1.3 percent while indirect tax ratio has increased from 8.5 percent to 10.3 percent during the last 10 years.

“The government is giving incentives to the powerful and the influential while burdening the poor under hefty amount of indirect taxes,” he said, adding, “The experienced team of PML-N has totally ruined the country’s economy in five years.”

The PTI member also criticized the government for taking hefty loans, saying the PML-N has added Rs12 trillion domestic loans and $33 billion in external loans during its five-year term.

About the growth rate, he said the government claimed that annual growth rate has reached 5.8 percent of the GDP citing 6 percent increase in industrial production, predicting 6.2 percent growth rate for the next year. But the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted just 4.6 percent growth rate of Pakistan for the next year.

He said the Economic Survey mentions just 1.45 percent increase in electricity generation compared to the previous year. “How could industrial production increase without increase in generation and provision of electricity?” he said.

He also pointed out that trade deficit has reached $40 billion while the investment has dropped to the lowest of the last 50 years.

The PTI member said the government has made no mention of Rs 500 billion circular debt, Rs 400 billion tax refunds of exporters and Rs 1200 billion losses incurred by public sector companies in the budget. He said the total budget deficit has reached Rs 2200 billion that is 7 percent to the GDP.

Continuing his budget speech on the second day, Leader of Opposition Syed Khursheed Shah criticized bad governance of the government while drawing comparison of performance between the PPP government from 2008-13 and PML-N government from 2013-18.

He also urged the government to declare a water emergency in the country to meet the increasing shortage and highlighted prolonged hours of electricity loadshedding across Pakistan.

Shah said the government has allocated zero rupees for its “Energy for All Project” and reduced allocation for Prime Minister’s Youth Initiative by 50 percent. The government has also reduced subsidy on tube-wells from Rs 8 billion to Rs 5 billion and allocation for wheat purchase from Rs 2 billion to Rs 1.5 billion, he said.

PML-N member Qaisar Ahmad Shaikh lauded economic policy of the government, but at the same time criticized it for ignoring unanimous recommendations of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance regarding reduction in interest rate on agricultural loans and tax on import of raw material for industry.

He also urged the government to focus on education and health sectors by increasing the budget allocations, besides taking effective measures to increase exports and foreign investments.

Another PML-N member Chaudhry Muhammad Ashraf also complained that the government ignored agriculture sector in the budget and it should review its policy.

Khawaja Sohail Mansoor of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan urged the government to review its amnesty scheme and devalue the currency further to increase exports.

JUI-F member Naeema Kishwar Khan said the government needs to focus on improvement of the agriculture sector.

PTI members Dr Arif Alvi and Hamid-ul-Haq, JUI-F member Asiya Nasir and PML-N member Khalil George also took part in the budget debate.

The House also passed a unanimous resolution to change name of Quaid-e-Azam University’s Physics department and name it after Abu al-Fath Abd al-Rahman Mansur-al-Khazini.