June 16, 2008	Monday	Jamadi-us-Sani 11, 1429

ISLAMABAD, June 15: The Pakistan Muslim League-N told the National Assembly on Sunday that it planned to table a resolution soon for the impeachment of President Pervez Musharraf.

Speaking on the second day of the general debate on the budget, Hanif Abbasi of the PML-N wondered how any change in policy could occur when the legacy of Gen (retd) Musharraf persisted and the same people who served under him held key posts, including the attorney-general, the Capital Development Authority chairman and the Pakistan Cricket Board chief.

He said he would not talk much about the budget, but would say only that it had disappointed the common people by bringing hardship for them through withdrawal of subsidies and proposing no step for providing relief to them. He said the trader community had rejected an increase in General Sales Tax after withdrawal of subsidies, saying that it would increase inflation and the government would not be able to control prices.

Criticising Defence minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar for his muted response to the recent missile attack on Mohmand Agency, he said the government owed an explanation to the nation as to what was the purpose of keeping 550,000-strong armed forces and the nuclear capability if the country was not able to defend its land against foreign aggression.

“The aggressors need to be warned that their planes will be shot down if they intrude into Pakistani territory again,” Mr Abbasi said.

GOVT UNDER FIRE: The government faced some anxious moments when coalition lawmakers came down hard on it for giving a tax-laden budget without providing any relief to the poor and adopting what was termed an unconstitutional way of increasing the number of Supreme Court judges to 29 through the Money Bill.

Some hardcore PPP legislators took upon themselves the duty of defending the budgetary provisions and claiming that they included many incentives for the common people.

Justice (retd) Fakhrunnisa Khokhar of the PPP termed the government’s move of including the legislation to increase the number of Supreme Court judges in the budget unconstitutional.

She said that if the government wanted to increase the number of judges, it should do so for the high courts to cope with the backlog of cases.

She said Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani’s orders of paying salaries of the deposed judges had been implemented only for the high court judges and not for those of the Supreme Court.

She also criticised the government over its failure to levy capital gain tax or wealth tax on a few bigwigs of the stock exchange who, according to her, had made the market hostage. She accused Arif Habib (a friend of former prime minister Shaukat Aziz), Aqeel Dhedy and Ejaz Shah of being involved in stock exchange manipulations.

Farzana Raja of the PPP said Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza had taken a courageous decision by not allowing Rangers to enter the premises of the Parliament House during the long march.

Riaz Pirzada of the PML-Q said that the budget had been prepared by the bureaucracy under dictation from somewhere else as had been done in the past and the blame of its bad aspects had been put on the shoulders of politicians.

He proposed that the budgets should be presented two to three months earlier, saying that the country no more needed to wait for foreign help in preparing the document.

He called for accountability of all segments of the society, including parliament, judiciary and the executive, to make Pakistan an egalitarian welfare state.

Mr Pirzada held the intelligence agencies responsible for most of the country’s ills.

He said some political leaders were in the habit of supporting ruling individuals by saying that their remaining in power was necessary for the country.

He said a parallel judiciary would emerge if the number of judges of the Supreme Court was increased.

Iqbal Qadri recommended withdrawal of GST on edible items to bring their prices down and enhancement of health budget to four to five per cent of the GDP. He claimed that about half of the medicines in the country’s markets were fake. He said there were 264 medicines on the drug list but over 20,000 medicines were registered in the country.

Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor said the country had received about $70 billion in foreign remittances and aid since 1999 but the amount had not been utilised properly.

He said Pakistani nationals had been handed over to the US in exchange for dollars in the name of fighting terrorism.

Dr Attiya Inayatullah criticised PML-N’s role of being part of the coalition government and leading the long march against it at the same time.

She said the National Reconciliation Ordinance had benefited some individuals while the budget would add to the suffering of the people.

She said that the Benazir Card scheme was more likely to benefit party ‘jialas’ than deserving people because the National Database and Registration Authority did not have any details about the income of the people.

She said people would come to know of the effects of the budget when the subsidy on certain items and utilities would be withdrawn from July 1.