ISLAMABAD, May 16: Senators called for government action to stem the tide of high prices at the start of an upper house debate on Tuesday amid some opposition warnings of protests that could reach private mansions.
All seven opposition senators who spoke on the first evening of the two-day debate on dearness and pre-budget economic situation in the country challenged the government’s claims about its economic performance and even the only one who represented the ruling party acknowledged that the fruits of progress had not reached the common man.
The government, which agreed to hold the debate sought by adjournment motions from several opposition senators, is due to respond after more speeches on Wednesday evening.
“There can be a volcanic eruption at any time,” Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) said while opening what turned out to be a fiery debate at a time when oppressive weather outside the parliament building was made pleasant by a downpour of rain.
“Please save the country from such a stormy process,” he asked the government at end of a speech in which he termed as fictitious the government’s claims about a projected per capita income of $800 reaching during the current fiscal year, the growth rate, poverty reduction and foreign direct investment.
Quoting what he called the latest figures from India and Bangladesh, the MMA leader said there could be “no bigger lie” than the government claim that prices of essential commodities in Pakistan were much lower than those in the neighbouring countries.
“Skyrocketing prices have become the single biggest problem of the common man and everybody is crying ‘dearness’,” he said. “We are heading towards a storm.”
He called for a policy change aimed at actual poverty reduction, employment generation, better education and health facilities and giving top priority to agriculture, small industries and macro-finance. He also proposed a “correction” of the tax system, with reduced rates for petroleum products and agricultural inputs and austerity in government spending.
Former information and broadcasting minister Nisar Ahmed Memon of the Pakistan Muslim League said everybody recognised that Pakistan had made economic development since President Pervez Musharraf took power but added that despite good figures “when you go to people, you see the fruits of progress have not reached them”.
He complained of a lack of say of elected representatives in policy-making and proposed the formation of an independent commission headed by a senior elected parliamentarian to recommend what should be done to make Pakistan an egalitarian society.
Abdul Rahim Mandokhel of the Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party called for a reduction of taxes in the next budget, including bringing the sales tax to five per cent from 15 per cent, an austerity drive by the government, cuts in military spending and due payments to provinces from the National Finance Commission award and royalties on natural gas and electricity.
Newly-elected Senator Shahid Hussain Bugti of the Jamhoori Watan Party said the “ruling classes” had not correctly realised the pinch of dearness felt by the middle, lower middle and poor classes and added: “Before they tear down our palaces, we have to think about them.”
MMA’s Dr Mohammad Saad accused the government of lacking in three vital attributes of being responsive, responsible and accountable and said this was because it was preoccupied with “self-preservation and self-projection”, which he described as “symptoms of a failed system and a failed society”.
Another MMA senator, Prof Mohammad Ibrahim, suggested that parliamentarians set an example in austerity and warned “those living in mansions and palaces” that hands could reach their collars if the middle class was eliminated by unbearable economic hardship. Saadia Abbasi of the PML-N wondered what the ruling party would tell the electorate in the coming elections of what it had done for them and demanded that Mr Aziz come out with meaningful remedies for the present situation.
