June 08, 2006	Thursday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 11, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, June 7: While members of the opposition criticised the federal budget for 2006-07 and said it provided nothing to the poor, treasury benches called it a people-friendly as a five-day debate began in Senate on Wednesday.

PML-N’s parliamentary leader Ishaq Dar, a former minister for commerce, opened the debate by challenging facts and figures contained in the Economic Survey and the budget for the next fiscal year, saying there were major discrepancies.

A verbal clash ensued after Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub challenged his claims about figure-fudging.

Mr Dar criticised the use of privatisation proceeds to finance spending and said it was not the practice till 2000-01 after which Rs8.35 billion was used in 2001-02, Rs11.20 billion in 2003-04, Rs28.30 billion in 2004-05. He said that between Rs75 billion and Rs90 billion would be used in the next fiscal year.

He contested government’s claims about reduction in domestic and external debts and said that domestic debt had “actually swelled to Rs2,267 billion in 2006”, up from Rs1,453 billion in 1999. Public-guaranteed external debts increased from $28.3 billion in 1999 to $31.6 billion till 2006.

The number of unemployed, which stood at 2.37 million in 1999, rose to 3.66 million in 2006, showing an increase of 54 per cent while trade deficit increased to an unsustainable level of $6.1 billion in the first nine months of the current fiscal year.

He termed the relief provided in the budget for salaried people and pensioners mere electoral gimmicks and part of the government’s election campaign. He said that the announcement of about sale of pulses by Utility Stores was ‘a joke’ since the USC network catered to less than 10 per cent of the country’s population.

He attributed the recent price hikes to an unprecedented increase in money supply, to Rs1,752 billion against Rs643 billion in 1999, a massive increase in indirect taxation impacting the poor and corrupt practices by trade mafias, including the sugar cartel.

He called for submitting the revenue portion of the defence budget to parliament for discussion and approval.

The former commerce minister said a negative growth rate of 8.4 per cent in electricity and gas distribution against last year’s 3.5 per cent belied the GDP growth estimates of 6.6 per cent in 2005-06 and 8.4 per cent achieved in the preceding year.

He criticised what he termed non-transparent and unprofessional handling of the entire privatisation process and said it had resulted in the disposing of government-owned entities like Pakistan Steel Mills and Habib Bank for peanuts.

Earlier, Mian Raza Rabbani of the PPP Parliamentarians criticised the delay in the start of the debate because of prolonged briefings by finance mangers, which had been boycotted by the main opposition parliamentary groups.

Azam Swati of the MMA termed the budget directionless and said it did not meet the requirements of a welfare state, which was enshrined in the 1973 Constitution. The budget, he said, failed to indicate government’s priorities or prove its achievements during the current fiscal year.

Nisar A. Memon of the ruling PML strongly supported government’s policies.

He claimed that the budget contained massive relief for the poor, adding that Gen Pervez Musharraf had called for delving into record foreign exchange reserves for the benefit of the masses.

He also defended the increase in the defence budget and compared it with the annual increases made by Israel, India and the United States.

In the second sitting, Raza Mohammad Raza of the Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party criticised reduction in allocations for the NWFP and Balochistan. He said that this attitude of the federal government that hampered development and progress in these provinces.

He said no facilities had been provided to people living around the Chagai mountains, which had been rendered barren because of nuclear tests.