LAHORE, June 20: Taking part in the ongoing debate on budget 2006-07 on Tuesday, the opposition members in the Punjab Assembly termed the document a jugglery of figures, benefiting only the rich and the powerful and crushing common people under the burden of inflation.

The debate continued for nearly seven hours during which the treasury benches defended the government and the budget while expressing their own reservations on its different clauses. They also gave suggestions for improving the budget in the presence of a number of ministers.

MMA’s Dr Wasim started the debate. Speaker Afzal Sahi interrupted him when he mentioned the expenditures of the president and the prime minister’s houses. But when he turned his onslaught towards spending of funds in the Governor’s House, Law Minister Basharat Raja intervened and reminded him that the MMA was taking one stance in the Punjab Assembly and another in the NWFP where it was ruling.

Mr Raja said bureaucracy made the budget in the NWFP by and the MMA member should tell as to how much the alliance’s government there had increased the salaries of government employees.

The minister’s remarks prompted another MMA member, Asghar Gujjar, demand from the speaker as to why the provincial assembly could not talk of the president’s house when it could allow a mention of the NWFP.

The topic was dropped when MMA’s Arshad Baggu said the NWFP finance minister had stayed in a mosque during a foreign visit to save huge government funds and Mr Raja said he was better because he had not altogether gone abroad on any official tour.

Dr Wasim said the government would get the budget passed from the assembly as a routine but no department would abide by the document. The government spent during 2005-06 Rs21.05 million under the head of consumer protection councils in districts but none of them were created. It had again proposed more funds in the new budget.

Similarly, no funds were allocated for the consumer courts in the previous budget but the government spent Rs31.03 million under the head. The fact was that none of the courts had so far been constituted in the province and the government had again demanded Rs53.01 million for them in the proposed budget.

He said Rs3.19 billion were allocated for the finance department in the budget 2005-06 whereas it was able to spend Rs2.68 billion. Now the allocation in the next year’s budget for the department had been increased to Rs12 billion. Billions of rupees were being given to the police department which had failed to improve law and order or the conditions in the police stations.

He condemned the demand of huge funds for new vehicles for the government machinery, the chief minister and his cabinet members during the next fiscal year. “The prime minister of India travels in a locally-made simple car whereas we demand no less than bullet proof foreign limousines and C-130 aircraft,” he said, adding even the US president and the British prime minister too were simple.

“Our role model should be Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his four caliphs,” he said.

The MMA member said the government had in the new budget promised 3.5 million jobs, asking as to how it would create such a number of vacancies. Recruitments in police had been made on the recommendations of treasury MPAs while openly flouting merit, he added.