LAHORE, June 9: Challenging the financial management and governance of the Shahbaz Sharif government, the PPP has presented a ‘shadow budget’ with an outlay of Rs714 billion for the financial year 2011-12.
The party claims that the province’s overdraft may be cleared within four months.
Releasing details of the shadow budget here on Thursday, former provincial finance minister and PPP MPA Tanveer Ashraf Kaira said they would adopt basic Chinese development model for eliminating unemployment and price hike from the province.
Opposition leader in Punjab Assembly Raja Riaz and PPP parliamentary leader Zulfiqar Gondal were also present.
Mr Kaira said they were following the Western practice wherein opposition parties presented a parallel ‘shadow budget’ to expose government’s performance and flaws in the budget.
The shadow budget contained a total outlay of Rs714 billion, including Rs276 billion for Annual Development Plan (ADP), against an expected official budget volume of Rs660 billion.
He said the Shahbaz government failed to use funds allocated for different projects in the previous ADP as only Rs61.9 billion, one-third of the total amount of Rs193.5 billion, was consumed in the year 2010-2011.
He said a sum of Rs175 billion had been allocated for the ADP in the fiscal year 2008-09, but only Rs100 billion were utilized.
Interestingly, the PPP remained part of the provincial government from April 2008 until Feb 2011 when PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif ousted it from the ruling coalition. The previous two budgets had been presented by Kaira.
Negating the ‘corruption-free’ image of the Punjab government, he alleged that there was no good governance in the province as per report of the Auditor General of Pakistan which showed Punjab as more corrupt than other provinces.
Quoting the report, he said there was an embezzlement of over Rs72 billion in the last two financial years. In 2009-10, funds worth Rs32.5 billion were embezzled and the scam amount rose to Rs40.4 billion in 2010-11.
Suggesting the Provincial Finance Commission to make the budget healthier and improving funds consumption ratio, Mr Kaira alleged that the Shahbaz government was using development funds of other districts in the provincial metropolis, especially on Raiwind Road and Model Town.
He said that Shahbaz Sharif had already ruined billions of rupees of the public in different projects like Sasti Roti, Food Stamp Programme and Sasta Atta in Ramazan Bazaars in the past, and he predicted that Ashiyana Housing Scheme and Danish Schools would also be failed projects as a huge chunk of the public exchequer would be wasted in next two years.
The shadow budget included an amount of over Rs6 billion for ending corruption in the province and providing funds to the anti-corruption establishment for appointing retired judges to sternly deal with the corrupt.
Highlighting the revenue collection and tax system issue, he said the Shahbaz government was unable to run the government as it failed to sell out official assets worth Rs38 billion three times and could manage to collect just Rs3 billion from the privatization proceeds.
He claimed that the opposition could collect more taxes and duties by making the system more affective.
He said they would give land to investors free of cost for establishing industry in the province with tax holiday for five years.
He also said that they would complete the project of computerization of land record to end the monopoly of patwaris in Punjab.
Raja Riaz said that his party had learnt that the provincial budget had been prepared at the residence of the Sharifs and that Nawaz Sharif, opposition leader in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar and Senator Ishaq Dar were the minds behind the budget which, he said, was a great injustice and no-confidence in authorities concerned.
He suggested that if the three PML-N leaders were more interested in preparing the provincial budget, they should join the Punjab Assembly.
He said the PPP would not create any hurdle in the budget session unlike the PML-N behaviour in the National Assembly when the federal budget was presented.