Not enough discussion and debate precede the national budget in the parliament or at private and academic forums. More often suggestions, mostly by the CBR, are invited from the public, particularly the trade bodies.

This year’s budget also has been no exception except that a large number of TV channels hosted the budget programmes in which lively discussions took place, days, if not weeks, after its presentation.

The official figures usually lack creditability. The opposition political leaders, independent economists and academics try to clip the tall claims of the government with counter arguments and statistics.

The term ‘statistical boom’ has been in usage since as early 1960s. Such exercises are often carried out to glorify the achievement of a government department or to hide its carelessness in proper maintenance of records.

Another way is to present the facts and figures with such perspective that they can have the desired impression and impact.

In the context of the present budget, the government’s focus is primarily on the fact that there has been prosperity as a result of over seven per cent economic growth during the last four years or so. Several hundred thousands of new cars can be seen on the roads of our cities and towns, impressive plazas, towers and malls are coming up in large numbers, more than 50 million people now own mobile phones while the booming Karachi stock market has crossed unprecedented 13,000 points.

But what, however, the government seems to have overlooked and its detractor would like to highlight is the reality that these symbols of prosperity are relevant mostly to about 1.5 million rich people who obviously have immense buying powers. Today, even a small new car costs close to half a million rupees. A flat in a plaza sells for over Rs10 million. No one these days can buy even a small residential plot in Karachi municipal or cantonment area for less than a million rupees. These niceties of life which the government claims to have brought are beyond the reach of even many of the middle income people.

For the poor, the high growth rate and prosperity has lost its no meaning because it has also fuelled double digit food inflation which hurts them the most.

The question for the vast majority of the poor people is not whether they have any share in the country’s prosperity but whether they have even bare minimum wherewithal for survival. There are many for whom just three square meals a day could be a cause for joy. Being the most vulnerable, mostly the poor fall victims to such dreadful diseases and disasters as tuberculosis, diarrhea, hepatitis, and floods and earthquakes. For them, even such basic necessities as housing, education, medicines, and access to common utilities are like dreams come true. And the government considers it as an act of generosity to increase their basic wages from meagre Rs4,000 to equally paltry amount of Rs4,600. The poor people are in the majority. But they have been excluded from the democratic process as practiced in Pakistan.

Unemployment is the biggest, in fact, the mother of alls problems facing the poor. But how can that be done?

The best way is to make him employable by training him in the skill that is in demand. Industrialisation and growth of large scale manufacturing have the biggest potential to create employment opportunities. The Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) is also a major source of employment.

For training, the government has set up a vocational training authority and a number of institutes. But, unfortunately, many of those institutes, in the words of a well known businessman, look like ‘Moenjodaro’.

In this year’s budget there has been a record Rs520bn PSDP which might create large number of jobs for the poor provided it is utilised to the maximum and does not lapse by a substantial margin as in the past years.

The slower industrial growth including the large-scale manufacturing in the current year is a bad news for employment. The food for work programme is being successfully used in India to provide work and relief to the poor on an extensive scale. Such programme should also be revived in Pakistan.

Since this is an election year and the government needs the votes of the ‘ghareeb awam’ the budget has been billed as people- friendly and pro-poor. From the common man’s perspective, there are some positive budgetary provisions such as 15 per cent rise in government employees” salaries and pensions, increase in the minimum wage for unskilled workers from Rs4000 to Rs4600, subsidy on tea, sugar, rice and cooking oils; opening of 5000 more utility stores selling consumer goods, including medicines, at less than the market price. Furthermore, the government also has programme to construct 47,000 houses for the low paid employees at Islamabad as well as plans to construct 250,000 housing units in the country over next five years.

However, the question remains as to how far the so- called pro- poor measures would be implemented in letter and spirit, for the past record shows that implementation of the plans and programmes has been often wide off the mark on one pretext or another. No wonder, the footage of the common people’s opinions on almost every TV channel express total lack of confidence in this year’s budget which, they feel that, like all other budgets in the past, would not make the lot of the poor any better.

This year’s budget has failed to impose Capital Value Tax (CVT) which means that billions of rupees earned in the stock market would not be subject to taxation. As against this, no noticeable change in the sale tax regime means that the poor consumer would continue to pay sales tax as high as up to 15 per cent on purchases of essential items.

Banks continue to reap the bonanza of 7.5 per cent spread at the cost of the depositors, mostly small, as the banks keep on defying the SBP advice to enhance the interest rate on deposits. The 7.5 per cent spread is too high as compared to the global average of three per cent. As a result, banking business profit has jumped to over 30 percent compared to about five per cent in other countries. At this rate, the bank becomes free for an investor in about three years time.

Foreign investment , at $6 billion this year, is mostly going into buying of privatised units, stock market, real estate, oil and gas exploration, mobile phone business and purchase of mostly existing banks. Such investments, by and large, represent merely the change of ownership of assets and not the creation of new assets and employment.

Power shortage has developed almost into a national crisis. The power outage for hours together several times a day and night is not only having a telling effect on business, industries and education but also on people’s health efficiency and well being.

Stock market is largely buoyant on support of the institutions, big investors and brokers who often indulge in speculation, and the foreign investors seeking better return on their excess liquidity. Thus a big chunk of the investment into our stocks comprises of volatile funds or ‘hot money’ which might ‘evaporate’ under a slight pressure or pretext. Moreover market looks over valued and over loaded.. Under these conditions, no one can guarantee that the crash of 2005 and 2006 would not be repeated.

The knowledge based economy is getting increasingly important for all round progress and development. The primary requirement for this is the development of human resources which is in deplorable conditions. Mushroom growth of universities and institutes in the country is turning over graduates, large in number but very poor in quality and standard.