ISLAMABAD, June 10: Some treasury members on Friday joined the opposition lawmakers in budget-bashing in the Senate, criticizing their own government for “giving incentives to business houses and elite class while not providing any substantial relief to the lower middle class and the poor”.
Muhim Baloch, a treasury senator from Balochistan, said: “This budget provides no relief to the poor since it has been prepared by the establishment for the benefit of the rich, the power brokers and power-sharers”.
He said in a democratic set-up “people’s voice is heard and national resources equitably distributed” while “in our system, the bureaucrats, sardars, and waderas rule the roost and are not ready to share resources with the common man”.
Mr Baloch was particularly harsh on the Punjabi civil bureaucracy which he alleged was not allowing distribution of national wealth to its real owners.
Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro got remarks of Mr Baloch holding ministers responsible for price hike expunged when Minister of State Dr Shahzad Wasim protested and demanded an apology from the senator.
The minister contended that some MPs started hitting out at ministers when their unreasonable demands were not met.
Professor Khurshid Ahmed of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) said the exercise of budget-making remained in the hands of the establishment with no real role of parliament. Describing the practice as a colonial legacy, he said the budget was prepared without giving sufficient time as against the practice of giving two to six months in other countries.
He referred to a large number of heads, including the Atomic Energy Commission, defence production, defence division, cantonments, educational establishment and the paramilitary forces and called for their expenditures to be made part of the defence budget.
He said details of their expenditures, except for most sensitive heads, should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
He also called for enlargement of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) by involving Senate members and appointing its chairman from the opposition.
He said the National Finance Commission award should have been announced before the budget “but it appears that creation of consensus among provinces was deliberately made an issue to keep federal control over provincial resources”.
He recommended spending 10 per cent income of natural resources on the district from where they were extracted, with 25 per cent left for the province.
He said full payments of net hydro-power profits to the Frontier province were stalled on one pretext or the other. The province was also not given any benefit in the allocation of subvention.
He regretted that the NWFP was also ignored by the federal government in the payment of compensation and provision of relief to people affected by flash floods.
By making 1998 as the national income base, he said the government was able to work out a GDP growth rate of 8.4 per cent which was not real. He also contested the government’s claims of poverty reduction and said poverty had increased in real terms.
He said the country needed a full-time finance minister but unfortunately neither it had a full-time prime minister nor a finance minister.
He warned that regional disparities in the distribution of wealth should immediately be removed otherwise they will act as a time-bomb for the country’s integration.
Ilyas Bilour of the ANP appreciated some tax relief measures for small and medium entrepreneurs but called for giving income tax rebate to private concerns rather than banks which had already become tycoons.
He urged reduction of oil prices and suggested subsidies on food items to provide some relief to the common man. In the stock exchange scam, while some big guns had minted money, a large number of poor people were ruined, he said.
He advocated the rights of smaller provinces, especially the NWFP, which he alleged was deprived of its genuine share in the net hydro-power profit. The profit should be calculated at Rs32 billion per annum as against Rs6 billion fixed in 1991.
Dr Akbar Khwaja of the PPP Parliamentarians said the State Bank had contradicted the prime minister’s claim of over 8 per cent growth rate and per capita income.
He said agriculture had not been given substantial incentives.
He pointed out that the country had not been able to attract much foreign investment, showing a dismal figure of $900 last year. The real estate transactions, which ought to be taxed, were kept out of the tax net.
He said the increase in the defence budget was unjustified because when it was hiked in last year’s budget it was said that additional expenditures were required for movement of army personnel, but the argument was no longer valid.
Dr Khwaja said the trade deficit, instead of coming down, was getting larger with a net accounts deficit of $7.6 billion.
He said the Consumer Price Index’s rise to 10.3 per cent could not be masked by the prime minister’s economic team as inflation had doubled in six months.
Others who took part in the budget debate were Prof Saeed Siddiqi of MQM, Rukhsana Zubairi of PPP Parliamentarians, Azizullah Satakzai of MMA and Gulshan Saeed of the ruling PML.
