Pakistan Peoples Party’s Sindh MPA, Ms Sharmila Farooqui said on Saturday that the new federal budget is totally anti-people containing a bunch of jugglery figures and another deceit with masses like the two past budgets, as there is no clue yet to one crore jobs, thousands of shelter houses, one billion trees, and load-shedding-free Pakistan, which were promised earlier.
“The total outlay of the budget is Rs7.136 trillion, which is 11% lower than last year, and out of this budget, Rs1.29 trillion huge amount has been allocated for defence sector with 11.8 percent raise while thousands of employees and pensioners have been deprived of raise in the salaries and pensions, which was a great injustice in the history of Pakistan. It now clearly shows that Prime Minister Imran Khan feels no mercy for the people who are already suffering too much from the torments of skyrocketing price hike due to inefficient policies of the PTI government’s economic experts,” she said in a statement on the new federal budget 2020-21.
She said that it was the matter of shame that the PTI regime had used Covid-19 crisis to cover up budget deficit problem, which is highest in Pakistan’s history and is another loss to the people. The budget cuts down subsidies by 48pc, hikes petroleum levy by almost 73pc, she added.
Mentioning alarming facts of FY 19-20, she said: “Internal resources were missed by 15.4%, PSDP spending was 20% below the budget allocation, and bank borrowing was 400% over the budget figures, which are big failures of the Khan’s regime .”
Sharmila said: “Despite ongoing Covid-19 crisis, the government in the coming year is expecting a 19% increase in total resources, which is not possible at all as some specifics of last fiscal year are: 27% increase in FBR revenue could not be achieved rather its target was missed by 30%; 25.8% increase in direct taxes was estimated but its target was also missed by 22%; 27.7% increase in indirect taxes could also not be achieved and its target was missed by 34%. The bulk of the indirect tax growth is expected to come from sales tax, which is estimated to grow by 34.4%, but it missed the past target by 32.3%. One has to wonder that in a COVID-19 economy, where demand is low, how the government would actually grow sales tax receipts by a whopping 34.4%.”
Petroleum levy, which is expected to up by a whopping 73%. Again, we have to call that into question because the assumption is low prices, which may spike, and if they do, the government will face a difficult choice of increasing petrol prices or reduce levy, says MPA Sharmila. She said that last year, the PSDP budget was Rs 701 billion, but only Rs 564 billion was spent, which was one more deceit with masses.
She recalled that the federal government had already devasted Pakistan’s economy as the economic growth target of the current financial year had nose-dyed to minus 0.4 percent against the project target of 4 percent while the dollar hit historic a high of Rs167 on May 26, 2020, and inflation rate rose to 14.6 percent in January this year, recording the highest level in 12 years.
Sharmila said that the Sindh province had not been given any new scheme in the 2020-21 PSDP, except two energy schemes, including power and gas connections for Dhabeji Special Economic Zone, which was a great injustice with the province of Sindh. She said that for 2020-21, the federal government says the growth would be 2.1 percent but the World Bank study said it would be minus -0.2 percent, which is a wrong estimation.
She said that former PM Nawaz Sharif had given Green Line Project to Karachi and had promised that the federal government would construct it on its own, but this PTI regime had formed its own company namely Karachi Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (KIDCL) and started Green Line Bus Transit System Scheme of Rs24.6 billion through it, which was an illegal act. There is no such company for three other provinces of the country, hence, forming the company for Sindh only would create chaos, Sharmila concluded.
