THE government has unveiled the new budget, which is its first. From a holistic point of view, it is a directionless document, containing elusive targets, protects some powerful groups from higher liability and fails to address the key economic challenges.

Tax on cigarettes and sugary drinks has been nominally raised. Tax on 2,000 cc cars is kept at mere five per cent and above 2,000 cc cars at 7.5pc.

No cap is fixed on import of luxury and unnecessary foreign consumer items which have flooded the market, displacing local products and is a burden on the country’s reserves.

It maintains liberalised import policy, even being revisited in some of the advanced countries. There is little focus on correcting the current account deficit, which is the mother of all the economic ills.

Despite the ambitious revenue target, the budget records a large deficit which will be bridged principally through foreign loans. The vicious debt circle will further aggravate as already 50pc of the budget is going into debt servicing. The whole exercise, in hindsight, appears futile as the will, competence

and fervor are missing. It is a shoddy piece of work prepared in haste and fails to unlock out-of-box solution to the economic challenges.

Shoaib

Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2019