June 06, 2006	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 9, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, June 5: The opposition parties on Monday rejected the new budget and termed it “an economic fraud” and a “brazen attempt” by the government to strengthen the ruling elite at the expense of the poor and downtrodden.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which is a part of the ruling coalition, also expressed reservations on some budgetary proposals and said “there was a great scope for improvement in it to make it a “people-friendly” budget.

People’s Party Parliamentarians spokesman Farhatullah Babar declared the budget a public relations stunt to cover up the dismal economic situation.

“In the first place, the budget under the military dictatorship has no sanctity. As has been the practice under this dictatorship, mini-budgets will continue to haunt the people every month with raises in prices of petroleum, gas and electricity,” he said.

“The new budget is anti-people, anti-civil society and anti-working class, which is designed to serve only vested interests of the ruling elite,” he added.

Mr Babar said military spending during the current fiscal year had crossed the allotted amount of Rs223 billion in the budget by nearly Rs18 billion and the PSDP was slashed to Rs228 billion.

“This has made the military spending exceed the development outlay, which is detrimental to social and human development and is deplorable,” he said, adding: “The increase in military allocations from Rs223 to Rs250 billion is unjustified, particularly in view of strident drive for peace in the region.”

Moreover, he said, the budget failed to address the issues of rising inflation and growing unemployment compounded by the doling out of civilian jobs to serving and retired military officers.

Talking to journalists soon after the budget speech, opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman said the government was patronising hoarders and the new budget only protected interests of big investors. He said committees concerned of parliament had not been taken into confidence during preparation of the budget. He regretted that the government had not taken any step to introduce interest-free economy in the country.

MQM’s parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Dr Farooq Sattar said that keeping in view difficulties the government faced in budget-making, the budget was a better one, but there was a great scope for improvement in it. He said it was true that there had been improvement in macro-indicators but the government should accept that it had failed to perform at the micro-level.

He said reduction in poverty, price hike and unemployment was only possible when the provinces would be given autonomy. He said there was a need to review the decision of levying taxes on property and stock market as it could affect development made in the two sectors.

PML-N’s information secretary Ahsan Iqbal termed the budget speech of the minister rhetoric and without any substance.

In a statement, he said the minister had failed to offer any concrete steps for curtailing inflation, alleviating poverty, generating new jobs and building world-class human resources through shifting greater resources towards social sectors.