KARACHI: Rights activists representing labourers, peasants and fisherfolk called a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Wednesday to reject the recent budget and announce a ‘black day’ to be observed by them on July 6 (Saturday).

Calling it an anti-people budget prepared by the government with an understanding with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the rights activists said that it would lead to more misery not just among the working classes but the business community too.

Nasir Mansoor, deputy general secretary of the National Trade Union Federation Pakistan (NTUF), said the budget is the worst in the history of the country. “The slide of the Pakistani rupee against the US dollar has led to further inflation in Pakistan and now there are 40 per cent people below the poverty line here. But why should the common people be expected to sacrifice like this all the time?” he said. “And then we are seeing media curbs so that no one raises a voice against the injustice. Trade unions are also being silenced.”

‘IMF’s agenda is a shackle of slavery and we reject it’

“The IMF’s agenda is a shackle of slavery and we reject it along with the designs of this government,” he said.

Veteran trade unionist Usman Baloch said that going to the IMF for help is like mortgaging the country. “Due to its coming to an understanding with the IMF, the government is raising costs of just about everything, including basic necessities, even before actually signing the agreement with the IMF,” he said.

‘How will we make ends meet?’

Saeed Baloch, general secretary of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, said that the poor would feel the brunt of the budget the most. “Fisherfolk and peasants here are wondering how they are going to continue sending their children to school and how they are going to make ends meet,” he said.

“When the devaluation of the rupee has not ever helped this country up till now what makes the government think that it would do so now? How can this budget be any good when the money set aside for health and education in it is so little?” he asked.

Habibuddin Junaidi, president of the Peoples’ Labour Bureau Sindh, said that first the people from the IMF “infiltrated” the Pakistani government to slowly destroy the economy. “We have so many reservations about what is going on. It is quite clear that some very special groups are going to benefit from this scheme. We see anarchy and rising crime in the future because of all that is going on. And the business class is also in trouble and protesting. There have been 200 factories closed in Faisalabad already. This country is fast moving towards chaos as the government turns sadist,” he said.

Zulfiqar Shah, joint director of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, said times are so bad that there is unemployment all over. “A driver is fired by his boss because he cannot afford him with fuel getting so expensive. Inflation has started a ripple effect like this and we need to resist it,” he said.

Zehra Khan, general secretary, Home-based Women Workers Federation, said that they no longer had any faith in the government. “There is more money reserved here for the non-development sector than the development sector. It just shows where this government is headed. See how the poor people with their little homes lining the Karachi Circular Railway tracks are being deprived of their homes without caring about where they would go. The poor people in this country were already hand to mouth and they can’t even afford basic necessities of life now,” she said.

Rafiq Baloch, president of NTUF, diverted attention towards the textile sector. “Where four men used to work on a loom, we have three men now. There is talk of layoffs happening almost everywhere,” he said.

Comrade Gul Rehman of the Workers Rights Movement, Saeeda Khatoon, chairperson, Association of Affectees of Baldia Factory Fire and Saira Feroze of the United Home-based Workers Union also spoke.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2019