ISLAMABAD: Parliamentarians on Thursday expressed mixed reaction to the budget for fiscal year 2018-19, with some of them hailing it for being business- and people-friendly and others criticizing it for not addressing various budgetary issues.
Participating in the budget discussion, Member National Assembly Qaiser Shaikh said that the government had given tax-free budget, aiming at 6.2 percent growth rate. He said that all the political parties unanimously endorsed the reduction in taxes, which was a great achievement by the government and would be written in golden words. He said that the growth rate during fiscal year 2017-18 was recorded at 5.8 percent, which was highest in last 13 years. He said that the inflation has reduced to the lowest level of last 30 years while the government announced many incentives to promote agriculture sector, resulting in growth of 3.8 percent of this sector during FY2017-18. He said that the government had also taken measure to check undervaluation of real estate.
Asad Umar, while participating in budget debate, said the growth rate shown by the government was not realistic and the target fixed for next year was also beyond reach as indicated by top economic experts and world financial institutions like International Monetary Fund (IMF). He said the circular debt has risen to Rs 500 billion but there was no mention of it in the economic survey and no budgetary allocation was made in the budget to repay it. He said that refunds of Rs 400 billion were also not mentioned in the budget.
He underlined the need for reducing indirect taxes, saying that people were paying about 51 percent on purchase of sugar. He said that investment recorded average growth of 15.5 percent during last five years, which was lowest in the history of the country, the exports of the country also remained stagnant during the last five years, while the trade deficit has expanded from $20 billion to $40 billion.
He said debt during 1998-2008 increased by Rs 3000 billion, while in five years of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government, it increased Rs10,000 billion and during the current regime, the debts increased by Rs12000 billion. He said that there was 7000 megawatt shortfall as on May 1, 2018, which was same as in 2013. He said that the government had failed to create employment opportunities for the youth.
Participating in the budget, Naeema Kishwar Khan criticized Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) for failing to deliver in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She said that focus on agriculture and industrial sector in the federal budget 2018-19 was a positive measure, which would have good impact on the national economy. She said that baron non-filers that they cannot purchase property worth over Rs 4 million was also a good measure. She also underlined the need for interest-free investment and banking system, adding that the resolution already passed in this regard should be implemented to eliminate the interest-based system.
Akram Durrani said that improvements have been witnessed in the management of G-13 and G-14 sectors of Islamabad while responding to some observations raised by Asad Umar.
Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said that the there was no enforced acquisition of land by Capital Development Authority (CDA) in Islamabad. The land is being acquired on market rates. He said that CDA has made a fund to compensate the effectees.
Khawaja Suhail Mansoor said that instead of criticizing the budget, there was need to find out its shortcomings and fix them for bringing improvement in economy. He said that broadening tax net was not a rocket science as potential taxpayers could easily be identified by their life standards. He also underlined the need for developing proper import and export policies which would have positive impact on country’s economy.
Chaudhry Ashraf said the government took concrete steps to overpower power loadshedding in the country and added thousands megawatts to the national grid system. He said many coal and RLNG based power plants to enhance power generation. Lal Chand said no relief was announced for the general and poor masses in the federal budget. He said Sindh produced 70 per cent gas of total country production but still many areas have not gas facilities. He alleged that neither federal nor provincial governments took any pragmatic steps for the development of Tarparkar.
Published in Daily Times, May 4th 2018.
