NAVEED BUTT & ZULFIQAR AHMAD

ISLAMABAD: The government along with its coalition partners on Friday managed to sail the Finance Bill 2019 through the National Assembly with 176 votes against 146, comfortably defeating the combined opposition’s plan to block the passage of the federal budget.

The Amendment in Anti-dumping Duty Act, 2015 and Enactment of Public Finance Management Act, 2019 were also made part of the Finance Bill, 2019 and approved from the House. The bill will become law after getting the assent of the President and will become effective from July 01.

As many as 10 amendments proposed by the treasury benches were incorporated in the bill, while all those put forth by the opposition were rejected.

Responding to the opposition, State Minister for Revenue Hammad Azhar said the opposition is quoting wrong figures and that he is sure that the opposition has not actually read the budget documents.

“For the first time in the country’s history, we have reduced civil expenditures up to five percent,” Azhar said as the opposition made noise in an attempt to drown out his voice.

Azhar tried to quote figures from the budget documents in an attempt to prove that expenditures of the Prime Minister’s House have actually been cut down and that no new tax has been imposed on ghee.

Criticising the previous government, he said that the PML-N government had put the economic stability of the country at stake intentionally through some “economic hit-men” during its last two years in power.

He pointed out that foreign exchange reserves declined by $10 billion in the last one-and-a-half-year tenure of the PML-N, adding the current account deficit also soared to $20 billion during their tenure.

He said the present government reduced the current account deficit by 20 per cent and trade deficit by $4 billion. He said the previous government had left behind a circular debt of Rs 1,140 billion “while we have enhanced the revenue of both power and gas sectors by launching successful drives against pilferage.”

Azhar said tax-to-GDP ratio witnessed a growth of 2 per cent over the last ten years. He said the PTI government will enhance the tax to GDP ratio by four percent in the next three years.

“We’ve also given a five-year economic plan in the budget and will also reduce debt to GDP ratio. We didn’t impose any taxes on essential commodities including meat, ghee, vegetables and fruits,” he added.

He said, “We have only imposed tax on the exotic vegetables and fruits.” When the minister said exotic fruit, PM Khan who was attending the session asked him to explain the term “exotic,” on which Azhar said: “Exotic means the imported fruits which the rich of the country eat.”

He also clarified that the inflation rate is currently 9 percent which was 24 percent in the era of PPP. He said no new tax has been imposed on laptops while those on mobile phones have been cut substantially.

He said a new mechanism will be evolved to ensure timely refunds to exporters which will help address their liquidity issue. Azhar said it is for the first time that the House held a threadbare discussion on the finance bill.

Azhar said that the government has retired record foreign loans worth $ 9.5 billion during current fiscal year which had never been done by any government in a single year.

On point of personal explanation in the National Assembly, he said during first year of PTI government, external debt increased by $ 2.7 billion whereas in last year of PML-N government, foreign loans surged by over $7 billion.

Responding to the opposition’s claim of obtaining domestic loans worth Rs 7,000 billion to Rs 10,000 billion during the first year of the PTI government, he said the figures are highly “exaggerated.”

“Pakistan’s total debt and liabilities had risen from Rs 6,100 billion to Rs 31,000 billion in June 2018,” he said, adding that the government has already shared the debt profile in the house in which all figures of debt are explained.

The opposition which attended the budget session by tying black ribbons around their arms challenged the government during voting on various clauses but the government managed to sail through after headcount with majority votes, hence rejecting all their amendments.

The opposition said that sales tax refund on local supplies of finished articles of textile and leather and finished fabric should be fixed at 6 per cent, which the government did not accept.

The opposition made noise, but failed to make a difference during clause by clause reading of the bill which started at 11:00am and remained continued till 7:30pm.

Before the proceedings began, Opposition Leader in National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif could not resist some theatrics, proposing an amendment to the Finance Bill seeking to change its title. Through the amendment, signed by other opposition members as well, it was suggested that the Finance Act 2019 be called the “IMF Obedience Act 2019”.

Khawaja Asif, Khawaja Saad Rafique, Marriyum Aurangzeb, Barjees Tahir, Murtaza Javed Abbasi, Khurram Dastgir, Ayesha Ghaus Pasha, Mohsin Ranjha and Shiza Fatima Khawaja, amongst others, signed the amendment bill.

Taking the floor, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said: “We totally reject this budget.” He said that due to depreciation of rupee, the debt has been increased by Rs 7,000 billion while Rs 3,500 billion more burden will be added to it.

“The government should extend the overseas stay for a Pakistani to be called a non-resident from 120 days to 180 days as 180 days [stay] is a standard practice all over the world for expatriates,” he added.

Another PML-N leader, Ahsan Iqbal, said if the Prime Minister himself is taking the country towards bankruptcy, the country needs no enemy, adding this is an anti-growth budget which will usher in unemployment, poverty and backwardness.

“The government claims that it has reduced expenditures whereas the budget document shows that for the first time, the PTI government has allocated more than Rs 1 billion for the Prime Minister’s Office. Funds have been secretly allocated under the head of defence production for maintenance of the PM’s aircraft. The Prime Minister, who was chosen somewhere else, flies in helicopters to Banigala more frequently than people use Uber taxis,” he added.

Iqbal termed it “an anti-poor, anti-salaried class budget” and that the “selected budget should be withdrawn and a new people-friendly budget should be presented.”

PPP MNA Abdul Qadir Patel brought down the government to its knees, forcing it to withdraw a proposal pertaining to Port Qasim which had proposed that “any surplus of receipts over the actual expenditure in a year shall be remitted to Federal Consolidated Fund (FCF) and all fines and penalties recovered shall also be credited to the FCF.”

Patel said that Port Qasim falls in Federal Legislative List’s part-II, which means the government, without discussing the issue with Council of Common Interests (CCI), can not pass any bill pertaining to the port.

He said if the proposed amendment has been passed, it would have not only been a violation of the Constitution, but will also deprive a profitable autonomous state entity to do upfront investments in different projects.

On this, the state minister said that the government has withdrawn the amendment.

Raja Pervez Ashraf of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) said that no matter who spoke about the budget, “the fact is that every person is talking against it.” He recalled that PM Imran Khan had stated if there is an honest leadership, people will happily give taxes, but the government has failed to collect even the same amount of tax which was being collected by previous governments.

He said that harassment of traders and investors under the garb of so-called accountability is not improving the economy. “Price of gas is going to be increased by 196 per cent, which is in no way justified,” he said.