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| 17 June 2004 | Thursday | 28 Rabi-us-Saani 1425 |
Opposition keeps treasury members on back foot
ISLAMABAD, June 16: In the Senate, the Opposition on Wednesday kept the Treasury benches on the back foot during the second day's debate on the budget with their hard-hitting speeches in which they alleged that the budget had been prepared to fulfil the needs of "feudals, big businessmen and army generals."
The Treasury members, who seemed to have no interest in the ongoing debate, failed to respond to the objections raised by the Opposition, and kept repeating the figures the finance minister quoted from the Economic Survey and then in his budget speech.
The lack of interest was evident from the fact that only 11 to 15 Treasury members were present in the House during the morning session, and no minister. When the debate resumed again in the evening, only eight Treasury members were present.
Taking part in the debate, People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar questioned the huge budgetary allocation for defence and termed it "a budget of the army, for the army and by the army."
He said in over 4,000 pages of budget documents, the defence allocation of Rs193 billion was sought to be justified in just one line that stated "to defray salary and other expenses."
He said the finance minister should give a break-up of the allocations to show how much of the Rs193 billion would be reserved for each of the three services. The finance minister, he said, should tell the parliament how much would be spent on salaries of armed forces personnel and on "other expenses."
He said in addition of Rs193 billion, another over Rs38 billion pension of military personnel was shown as civil expenditure. Besides, he said, several expenses shown under the civil heads were also basically military related and should have formed part of the defence budget.
He said the total defence expenditure was in excess of Rs240 billion. Raza Mohammad Raza of the Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) ridiculed the finance minister's claim regarding reduction in the poverty. "Had Shaukat Aziz made this announcement at a public place, he would not have been spared by the people", he added.
He said the Baloch were united against the "government's design to hand over Gwadar port to the foreigners." He said there was nothing in the budget for Pakhtoons, Sindhis and Balochs. "If there is something for the people of Punjab, then its only for the elite of the province," he said.
Prof Ghafoor Ahmed of the MMA criticized the budgetary proposals and said tax burden had been further increased on the poor. He suggested that schemes for construction of low cost houses should be launched to meet the needs of the poor and middle class families.
Anwar Bhindar of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) termed the budget "balanced and poor-friendly." He proposed that a pre- budget session of the National Assembly should be convened to prepare the outline of the budget.
Asfandyar Wali of the Awami National Party (ANP) criticized the government for presenting the budget without finalizing the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award.
Rehmatullah Kakar (MMA), Nisar Memon (PML), Prof Saeed Siddiqui (MQM), Farooq Naek (PPP), Naeem Chattha (PML), Latif Khosa (PPP), Razzaq Thaheem (PML), Muhim Khan Baloch (BNP), Bibi Yasmeen (PML), Rukhsana Zuberi (PPP), Tanveer Khalid (PML), Liaquat Bangalzai (MMA), Amjad Abbas (PML), Ismail Buledi (MMA), Sadia Abbasi (PML-N), Kausar Firdaus (MMA), Mumtaz Bibi (MMA) and Azizullah Satakzai (MMA) also took part in the debate.
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