ISLAMABAD, June 7: The former finance minister and parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in Senate, Ishaq Dar, has challenged the budgetary figures presented by the government and said the actual overall fiscal deficit is 5.94 per cent of the GDP.

Speaking at a press conference at the party’s Central Secretariat here on Tuesday, the PML-N senator pointed out various contradictions in the government’s own documents. The PML-N secretary-general, Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, MNA Rana Mehmoodul Hassan, MNA Chaudhry Abid Sher Ali and party’s information secretary Siddiqul Farooque were also present.

“The overall fiscal deficit, which has been claimed at three per cent of the GDP actually works out to 5.94 per cent of the GDP,” he said. He said the government working of three per cent was based on current expenditure figure of Rs623.3 billion as per modified budget estimate whereas the document titled, “Federal Budget in Brief 2005” indicated an amount of Rs784.68 billion. He said it meant that an under statement of Rs161 billion of current expenditure had been made for calculating fiscal deficit.

Similarly, he said, development expenditure had been taken at Rs188 billion for fiscal deficit calculation purpose as against the actual figure of Rs202 billion. This again understates the fiscal deficit by another Rs14 billion, he added. He said the privatization proceeds of Rs15 billion had also been incorrectly taken in arriving at the fiscal deficit of Rs199 billion. “With the said three adjustments, the overall fiscal deficit is Rs389 billion as against the claimed Rs199 billion,” he added.

The PML-N senator also challenged the government’s claim of reducing domestic and external debts. The domestic debt, he said, had actually heavily increased from Rs1,453 billion in June 1999 to Rs2,018 billion in April 2005, indicating an increase of Rs565 billion. Similarly, he said the external debt was $33.5 billion in June 1999 and it had now increased to $34.8 billion showing an increase of $1.3 billion. He said these figures had also exposed the claims of the government that it had broken the begging bowl.

He said the number of unemployed people in Pakistan stood at 2.36 million in 1999 whereas today 3.52 million people were unemployed showing a 49 per cent increase in the number of unemployed people during last six years.