June 13, 2007	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 27, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 12: The opposition in the Senate on Tuesday criticised the government for claiming that the budget for 2007-08 was people-friendly.

It claimed that the budget was “of the elite, prepared by the elite and it had miserably failed to give anything to the poor”.

The opposition and treasury joined hands while deciding to amend the motion for budget debate through correcting its wording to the extent that the Senate could propose amendments in the money bill through recommendations under Article 73 of the Constitution.

The opposition parties, which were expected to continue their tough line on the Karachi killings and the arrest of political workers across the country, seemed to have transformed their role as they decided to take active part in the budget debate.

Opening the debate, Ishaq Dar of the PML-N said all the seven budgets presented by the Musharraf government served the interests of the feudal and other influential people and the multinationals as they failed to reduce the hardships of the common man.

He said as opposed to the government’s tall claims the country’s per capita GDP growth has been one of the lowest in South Asia and below the average of all low-income countries during 1999-2007.

Dar said the consumer price index (CPI) has increased from 3.6 per cent in 1999 to 7.9 per cent in 2006-07, wholesale price index (WPI) has jumped from 1.8 per cent to 6.9 per cent and sensitive price index (SPI) rose from 1.8 per cent to 11.1 per cent depicting an increase of 119 per cent, 283 per cent and 516 per cent, respectively, during this period. He said there has been massive increase in indirect taxation to hit the poor while no substantial increase was visible in direct taxes.

The PML-N leader contested poverty reduction figures as, according to him, in real terms 73.6 per cent of the population lived below poverty line on the criterion of $2 per day.

He said the non-development expenditure continues to swell every year as it has increased by 143.5 per cent from Rs424.4 billion in 1998-99 to Rs1056 billion in 2007-08.

Dar said the defence expenditure inclusive of pension in 1998-99 was Rs143.4 billion which has now gone up to Rs252.63, excluding pension.

Despite tall claims of breaking the begging bowl, he said the government has failed to reduce its debts as domestic debts actually increased from Rs1459 billion in June 1999 to Rs2351.7 billion by the end of March 2007 and external debts which were $ 28.3 billion in 1999 rose to $ 31.08 billion as of March-end.

Prof. Khurshid Ahmed of the MMA refuted government claims of increasing country’s foreign exchange reserves to an insurmountable level saying that the amount when Gen. Musharraf took over was $1.2 billion which was sufficient for the imports of three and a half months while the present reserves of $14 billion were slightly more than the import of five months. He said though some economic indicators have improved, the overall increase was not more than 5 per cent.

Meanwhile the house standing committee on finance held its meeting during the house proceedings to receive, discuss and finalise recommendations for changes in the budget.Leader of the House Wasim Sajjad, Begum Fauzia Fakhruzzaman and Nisar A. Memon were among others who also took part in the debate.