ISLAMABAD June 9: The opposition in the Senate on Thursday described the budget for 2005-06 as one meant for elite “which offered no relief to over 85 per cent of population living on less than two US dollars a day”.
In a continuing debate on the new budget in the upper house, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) parliamentary leader Ishaq Dar rejected the government’s claim of having achieved high GDP growth as a result of figure-fudging and said the official documents depicted a different picture.
He said the basis of showing GDP growth at 8.4 per cent was misleading as it took optimistic estimates of agricultural production and factored in industrial growth figures representing items of elite class like automobiles, air-conditioners and deep freezers, etc.
He found discrepancy in the government’s claim about fiscal deficit as being 3 per cent of GDP “when its figure, according to official documents, works out to 5.9 per cent of GDP”.
Likewise, current expenditure, as per modified budget estimate, has been shown as Rs623.3 billion whereas the “federal budget in brief” indicates an amount of Rs784.08 billion – an understatement of Rs161 billion of current expenditure “for the purpose of calculating fiscal deficit”, he added.
He noted a discrepancy of Rs14 billion between the official figure of development expenditure and the “actual one”. “If these two understatements are added up to the fiscal deficit figure, it will swell to Rs374.1 billion,” he added.
He said that non-development expenditures continued to rise as Rs227 million approved in the budget for PM House climbed to Rs268 million by end of year. An ECG machine and a cardiac treadmill machine costing Rs2.7 million were purchased for the premier.
He said that reduction in tax rate on banks to 38 per cent and customs duty on cars above 1500 cc to 65 and 70 per cent was a joke with a country where 40 per cent of population lived on less than one dollar a day and another 43 per cent on less than two dollars a day.
Mr Dar said that development expenditures, which stood at 3.4 per cent of GDP in 1998-99, had been reduced to 2.9 per cent of GDP in 2004-05.
Awami National Party’s president Asfandyar Wali Khan said the smaller provinces’ demand of financial autonomy must now be met. He said it was a pity that the Frontier province’s share in net profits income fixed at Rs6 billion per annum remained the same to-date.
He said the NRB had been created in the centre to cripple provinces by devolving whatever power they had to the districts. He criticized what he called the “duplicity of the government” in handling Fata affairs where the right of “one man, one vote” was not granted.
He advocated national reconciliation to tackle national issues by bringing back leaders of two main political parties (Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto).
Farhatullah Babar of PPP Parliamentarians said that allocation for NAB was increased from Rs467 million last year to over Rs752 million this year “but when it comes to the accountability of Fauji Foundation, NAB expresses its inability to do so because it is out of its purview”.
He said the managing director of Fauji Foundation was appointed in April 2002 when he was still in uniform and a serving corps commander. He retired from the Army during his tenure in the FF.
The Fauji Foundation, he informed the house, was set up under the Charitable Endowment Act 1890. It has a Committee of Administration set up under section 13 of the Charitable Act 1890. “How a body, operating under a law of parliament, can be declared to be operating beyond parliamentary scrutiny and accountability, he queried.
He condemned the increase in defence budget and said the army was benefiting from many other projects.
Maulana Gul Nasib of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal said that the budget “does not provide for” putting the country on the path of Islamization which was its basic goal.
He criticised the government’s steps “for secularization of society”.
Azam Khan Swati, Kamran Murtaza and Latif Ansari and Kulsoom Parveen were other speakers from the opposition.
S.M.Zafar, Anwar Bhinder, Tanvir Khalid and Nighat Agha of the treasury benches also spoke.
