ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs Senator Ishaq Dar on Friday presented Rs 4.394 trillion national budget, which shows a 7.3 per cent-increase from the previous year, with a growth target set at 5.7 per cent.
Thursday’s Economic Survey (2015-16) revealed the government had failed to meet major economic targets, including GDP growth state that stood at 4.71per cent against a conceived target of 5.5 per cent during the outgoing fiscal year.
A misleading statistical maneuvour – PPP
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) also declared the budget as a pack of lies and tactful manipulation of statistics, with its leaders saying that the allocations of the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) stood at 800 billion, but only 12 billion had been reserved for Sindh.
The party said that the federal budget was a complete failure as it had totally ignored smaller provinces, especially Sindh that adds up to 70 per cent of country’s total revenue annually.
It said the federal budget failed to carry along the need for improvements in social, health and education sectors. The PPP leaders argued the pensioners and public servants would also get nothing from this federal budget.
They demanded that indirect taxes should be removed and minimum wages should be fixed at Rs 15, 000 a month. They also demanded that the allocations for the PDSP should be revised and enhanced and new schemes should be added.
No support price mechanism – PTI
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Friday deplored the imposition of “more indirect taxes on people in the form of withholding taxes”.
“One word, withholding tax, was repeatedly heard in the National Assembly,” Qureshi told reporters referring to Dar’s budgetary proposals for the fiscal year 2016-17.
“More indirect taxes have been imposed on people in the name of withholding taxes,” he said, adding the government missed most of its targets.
“In every budget, targets are set by the government and by the end of year an economic survey is printed with the caption of mistargets,” he said.
To a question about a special package for farmers, he said that the announcement was a repeat of PM’s Kissan Package.
“Although Kissan Package was announced, it was never implemented,” he said, adding that any relief announced in the package was linked with sharing of provinces.
The former foreign minister said that support price mechanism, which was the major demand of farmers, wasn’t accepted by the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N)-led government.
Mere cheerful announcement – PML-Q
Former Punjab chief minister and senior leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q), Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, said farmers do not want merely cheerful announcement but full price for their crops and reasonable income in return for heavy expenditures incurred on cultivation of crops.
Recalling his tenure as the Punjab chief minister, he said 50 per cent concession was given on electricity bills for tube wells besides other incentives and facilities in agriculture sector.
Neither there is any possibility of reduction in price hike and unemployment through budgetary measures nor any reduction in energy crisis, the former chief minister said.
