Articles, reviews and reports on budget are mostly tedious and repetitive. But one craves the indulgence of the reader some more. The only thing the present rulers have been crowing about for the last five years is a pile of foreign exchange reserves and a buoyant stock exchange.

The first achievement has become a subject of speculation about the missing Rs25 billion and the latter was brought down crashing by business friendly Finance Minister with his ill-advised CVT in this budget. It is like slaying the goose that laid the golden eggs.

So there go the two crowning achievements of these WB/IMF/Citibank whiz kids. CVT will be withdrawn like the much hyped property survey forms few years back, proving right the Punjabi adage of 100 onions and 100.

There have been few cosmetic innovations in the budget. Like they have introduced a catch phrase 'Affairs' and Services', which they have suffixed to ministries of Education, Defence and Health. etc Education registered a small decline in the outgoing year.

In the absence of any evidence to show that education improved it is more than likely that the money has been stacked somewhere and most likely with HEC (Higher Education Commission). Economic Affairs registered a substantial degradation with decline in expenditure of 29 per cent from Rs78 billion to Rs 55 billion.

The break-up shows largest single chunk of allocation going towards tertiary education. Administration alone would cost Rs821 million that is almost a billion. Cost of delivering education is excessive, it seems.

A new chart of accounts has been created this year and bulk of expenditure has been booked under General Public Services (GPS). It has been claimed under budget "an amount of Rs349.5 billion will be consumed by executive and legislative organs or 50 per cent of the current expenditure, 27.6 per cent for defence, 7 per cent for economic survey and 1.74 per cent for education.

General Public Services(GPS) includes Rs42.5 billion towards pensions, mostly for the defence personnel, Rs44 billion towards servicing of foreign debt, Rs51 billion towards foreign loans repayments and Rs170 billion towards servicing of domestic debt.

Most of the borrowings are defence related. Administration of GPS is a small component of this new chart of account involving only Rs422 million. The budget is an annual estimate of expenditure and budget makers are as good as their estimates.

The sanitized information contained in government publication particularly the budgetary documents indicate that the government failed to stick to the original budget estimates in 2003-04 and exceeded it by 7.8 per cent against Rs805 billion, it spent Rs868 billion. That is a big setback.

The overall picture hides the hideous truth that it is the social and development parts of the budget that were cut to provide for utterly unnecessary non-development expenditure. Having had the signal honour of presenting the 5th budget in a row, one would assume, that the FM had honed his skills to be able to stay close to the reality.

Defence Affairs and Services (a new nomenclature) exceeded the budget substantially by 13 per cent, having spent Rs180 billion against Rs160 billion. Next year the budget for defence has been raised to Rs194 billion, which is an increase of 11 per cent over original budget of last year. General Public Services also posted an increase of 21 per cent from Rs645 billion to 714 billion.

The issue that the budget is obviously skirting like the previous ones is the choice between bread and butter on the one hand and security on the other. Since the present government is all about security, the choice has been convincingly made in favour of security.

The choice having been made against the people and in favour of the vested interests, this budget or ten more like this will make no difference to the fate of the people. So the budget is a non-issue. We belabour as a part of annual ritual.

The claims of the government to a phenomenal growth rate are predicated more on the change of base year rather than on real progress. Dismal rate of growth in agriculture for two years running admitted by the government has been blamed on God who did not give rains or whatever, but not on the misguided policies this government pursued relentlessly.

The cost of inputs including electricity was high except for water, which continued to be heavily subsidized. Grower was denied his rightful price through foolish interventions like in the case of wheat when its movement was banned and wheat trucks were raided in the name of preventing hoarding.

Agriculture which employees 42 per cent of the labour force and contributes 23 per cent to the GDP has received huge publicity and low allocation. In the new budget a provision has been made for Rs903 billion as against Rs805 billion in the previous budget.

Yet this budget provides only Rs4 billion for agriculture, food, irrigation, forestry and fishing, all together; out of a total outlay of Rs902 billion. This is almost half of what was allocated last year.

The budget was preceded by announcement with so much fanfare in the Presidency of an agriculture package, which contains nothing, added nothing to the prospects of agriculture.

The basic problem of employment, poverty and growth could only be addressed if fundamental reforms were introduced in agriculture. This involves ownership rights for the tillers, which all the previous governments and the present one religiously avoids granting.

The Prime Minister showed great deal of courage by declaring that there wont be any land reforms. There is enough literature to prove that higher growth and greater employment can be achieved if huge land holdings are parcelled out to the cultivators.

As suspected there was a decline in development expenditure from Rs160 billion to Rs154 billion. Even this figure is likely to conceal some failures because it often happens that the money is released to the government organizations towards the end of financial year when it is impossible to spend and the departments keep the money in accounts, characterized for the purpose as PLA (Personal Ledger Account) so as to avoid lapse of budget.

Wapda does it routinely and credits itself with progress by simply transferring funds, say, to the government of Punjab for land compensation, which may take years to reach the landowners.

The Thal Canal would be a good example. Development is the vulnerable side of the budget and is easy to trim. Non-development is very dear to the rulers and always exceeds the budget estimates.

Not surprisingly the poor management of Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) resulted in a decrease of Rs.6b. Next year it is claimed that an increase of 31 per cent over revised estimates for the previous year has been budgeted. This is a public relation exercise because eventually the expenditure will be much less than budgeted.

That is the wont of unrepresentative governments. Another problem with allocation under the PSDP is its nature of being a bureaucratic exercise, which does not take into account the principle of equity as between provinces.

Government performance on revenue generation has been impressive. It generated more revenues than it budgeted. But it failed to control the other side of the equation, that is the expenditure. It therefore borrowed heavily in spite of disclaimers.

In spite of loud noises against external borrowings, the budget provides for external resources at Rs.156 billion against the revised budget of 145 bn. So there is an increase and not a decrease as claimed.

In the outgoing year, under external resources, it raised Rs145 billion against a budget of Rs159 billion. There was a decline under project loans and programmes loans and similarly under the head "other aid".

That was good news. What was not good was the introduction of Euro bonds. Without there being a budgetary provision, the government went ahead to buy euro bonds worth Rs29 billion. Bank borrowings increased from 28bn to Rs74 billion-almost three times. They have budgeted Rs45 billion next year and are likely to exceed it by twice as much, if one goes by the trends.

Transfers to the provinces show an increase from Rs256 billion to Rs296 billion. After interest and loan repayment of Rs39 billion, which is a rip-off, money having been lent at usurious rates. The provinces will be left with Rs257 billion.

The federal government admits its inefficiency in matter of collection and charges an exorbitant five percent for all the taxes except income tax for which its charges 6 per cent. This is doubly depressing because the provinces get only 37.5 per cent of total resources under an outdated unconstitutional 1997 NFC Award.

Under Public Order and Safety Affairs, which sounds like a joke in view of the public order which has broken down and where even Corps Commander is not safe, receives Rs15 billion against Rs12.9 in the previous budget.

This head includes law courts, fire protection and prison administration. All three have received Rs0.5 billion, with no increase over the previous budget. One has to see the courts in Islamabad to believe the criminal neglect of the government. The poor judges don't have an appropriate office or adequate furniture.

Federal Investment on Current Account is a misnomer and conceals undeserved and unjustified subsidies to inefficient organizations like Wapda, the KESC, the PIA and the Utility Stores Corporations at the cost of the taxpayer.

Wapda received Rs34.5 billion last year in spite of five years continued stewardship by a know-all and do-all General. Next year the budget provides no subsidy. But that is no guarantee that a subsidy will not be given, although chances are slim because Wapda is headed not by a general.

The PIA in spite of claims to have made profits, will receive Rs4.8 billion as against Rs4.9 billion it received last year. Total expenditure under this account would be Rs5.4 billion against Rs41 billion last year. If that is the kind of ballyhooed performance, the ministry of finance and particularly its FM should decide to opt out gracefully. But that is a vain hope.