KARACHI: PPP attacks govt for flaws in budget papers
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, June 22: Leader of the Opposition Nisar Ahmad Khuhro has said that the budget documents, including finance bill, are important papers which called for flawless figures and calculation anomalies, but the budget documents 2005-06 and even finance bill reveal the performance of the government.
Mr Khuhro was addressing a press conference in his assembly chamber after the House was prorogued. He pointed out that the coalition government claims itself to be a champion of democracy, but when the finance bill was under discussion, its members were not free to exercise their freewill and had to endorse the bill as per directives of the chief minister and the finance minister.
He said as the Sindh government had miserably failed to restore law and order in the province, and it was encouraging formation of private armies by giving them registration against a sum of Rs 200,000.
He said if people could get protection of their life and property by acquiring services of private guards only, what was the need to spend Rs 15 billion on maintaining law enforcement agencies. Why entire law and order matter was not handed to the private security agencies.
He said opposition benches had done home enough work for full participation in the general budget discussion which reflects from the fact that 170 cut motions were submitted in the supplementary budget and 430 in the New Year’s budget. They all were in the interest of the people of Sindh. Even the anomalies in calculation and printing were also worked out. The finance bill was also not free of errors which was a brief document. This attitude of the government compelled him to say that he was right to call it a government of the inept people.
He said the budget could not be termed as a grower-friendly as by reduction in cess on sugarcane, it had only cut down the development fund which was exclusively meant for development work in sugarcane growing areas.
Syed Murad Ali Shah earlier pointed out that the finance minister had to accept the fact that new budget was not a tax-free budget as was proclaimed by the government. He said he had pointed towards many anomalies in the budget document, but the finance minister did not respond to them.
He said he had submitted four amendments to the finance bill in the assembly secretariat on Saturday, but they were killed in the chamber, including the amendment to reduce sales tax on services from 15 per cent to 10 per cent and broaden its scope by netting other service providers.
By another amendment it was proposed that in the fishing rights laws, the word lease be dropped with license to end the contract system. He said that it was unfair attitude of the Speaker that instead of exercising his powers under Rule 211 to protect minority, he put their motions to the approval of the House.
Mr Shah pointed out that he wanted to move a privilege motion against chief minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim who during general discussion on the budget 2005-06 had informed the House that in the year 2004-2005 the deficit budget had turned into surplus. This was also reported in daily Dawn on June 19. However, the budget books clearly show that 2004-2005 revised budget is in deficit.
He said that as the chief minister had made a false statement on the floor of the house, he had breached the privilege of the members of the august House. But he said his motion when put to the House was rejected.
