Senator Babar says absence of transparency,
lack of accountability and civilian oversight can’t be
condoned in name of national security and defence;
Sherry Rehman says govt added surcharges to
power bills which will make the poor poorer
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator and key leader in the Senate Farhatullah Babar Tuesday alleged that the 2017 budget sought to ambush the Supreme Court, shut the door on Fata reforms, launched a bristling attack on the human rights and failed to inject even token transparency and accountability in the military spending structures.
During the proceedings, another PPP Senator Sherry Rehman grilled the finance minister for patting his own back for the alarmingly increasing trade imbalance and falling exports.
As soaring temperatures pounded the federal capital like other parts of Pakistan, taking part in the budget debate, Senator Babar said that for the first time the total financial powers were vested in the executive in what he said "ambush of the Supreme Court'".
“This is the foremost political statement of the budget,” he said.
“The August 2016 verdict stated that the prime minister cannot take decisions by himself or by supplanting or ignoring the cabinet because the power to take decisions is vested with the federal government i.e. the cabinet and unilateral decisions taken by the PM would be usurpation of power".
He pointed out that never before the SC was fired upon using the platform of finance bill.
"B sai budget, B sai bandooq (gun) and seen sai Supreme Court is the new course curriculum. The SC was fired upon from the budget bandooq”.
"The much-trumpeted Fata reforms are dead and buried; it is yet another political statement of the budget, he went on to assert.
He noted out of 13 PSDP projects of NHA and of the 63 new PSDP projects of Higher Education Commission not one was for Fata. Even the token allocation of one rupee has not been made for the so-called Fata reforms. 'Weep Fata, weep' is the message,” he charged.
Babar said the third political message was the bristling attack on the human rights of citizens by transferring the resources and powers of independent National Commission of Human Rights (NCHR) to the executive and setting up of a parallel human rights body under the executive.
“The law provides for an independent NCHR to oversee state's performance in human rights; however, a notification issued in March brought it under the administrative control of the government. The NCHR is supposed to take notice of human rights violations committed by the executive? How can it be brought under the executive itself,” he asked.
He noted funds had been allocated in the PSDP for a new institute of human rights under the executive while the Commission starved of funds as no allocation made to set up the ‘fund’ provided in the law.
Babar claimed that the independent commission was placed under the executive in March after its representative contradicted the official version about terrorism at an international forum.
"Protection of human rights is not the political agenda of the government is a stark message of the budget,” he alleged.
He said the nation always provided as much as asked for in the name of national defence but absence of transparency, lack of accountability and civilian oversight could not be condoned in the name of national security and defence.
Transparency and accountability, he noted, were alien to the government. It had persistently refused information about the post-retirement perks and privileges of retired generals.
“It promptly questioned the tweet on Dawn Leaks but meekly accepted the tweet warning of tension between the state institutions if such difficult questions continued to be raised,” he said.
Praising the budget, PML-N Senator Abdul Qayyum said, "Promotion of knowledge economy is the only right way forward to achieve the goal of a prosperous Pakistan.
Pakistan is although ostensibly spending 2 percent of its GDP on education, if we take into account over Rs800 billion being spent by the private sector on education, it in fact comes to 4 percent of GDP”.
But additional budget alone, he emphasised, would not work and noted that even today over 22 million children were out of school.
“This aspect has to be looked into by the provinces. Punjab in this context is in the lead, which brought over 3 million additional children to school in the last four years. Unfortunately progress in this regards in Sindh is zero. We must get out of parochialism/ provincialism and adopt nationalism to promote education,” he noted.
Senator Qayyum also strongly recommended more increase in pensions of the government employees, who were hard hit and found it hard to afford simple living.
He also highlighted that defence budget, debt financing and development projects were unavoidable needs in view of Pakistan’s peculiar location and regional realities, which leave limited choices for any government in Pakistan.
PPP Senator Sherry Rehman expressed dismay over the budget by saying, “The government just snatched home from people for a better life by telling them it is blithely continuing to tax them to pay for its profligate spending”.
“It is appalling to observe that around 82 to 85 percent of the taxes collected are indirect. The brunt of these failed policies is borne by the poor citizens of the country. They are the ones reeling from power outages. They do not have access to generators, they do not have the cash to buy an extra fan or pay their utility bills,” she said.
She questioned the government on the withering tax filer base and said, “for a country that cannot pay for itself and wants to be sovereign, how is the tax filer base shrinking? Should the poor also shoulder the lavish expenditure of the government?”
Senator Rehman remarked, “This is the first government where Minister of Finance is patting his own back for the farcical record trade imbalance. The government has projected a current account deficit of $10.4 billion due to an increase of 26.9 billion in trade deficit including Rs.401 billion in circular debt and instead of being ashamed, they are celebrating for reasons unknown”.
“Big numbers are proof that the exports are massively declining and the imports are rising. For a country that is the 4th largest cotton producer in the world, how are our exports in such a dire situation? You cannot blame away the trade imbalance on CPEC fuelled imports? How can the exports go down to almost dollars 3 billion as compared to PPP’s tenure when oil prices were much higher than what they are today,” asserted Senator Rehman.
"From Kashmir to Karachi, the country is under darkness not only due to loadshedding, but because we are drowning in debt. On top of that, the government has added surcharges on electricity which will inadvertently make the poor poorer under these new schemes,” she noted.
“The national debt has reached time bomb proportions but here we are, being told that the incumbent government will not require another IMF bailout. Of course we will, we are already planning to borrow $8.1 billion in new loans, on international bond markets where no development finance rates are available, instead there are high interest rates,” lamented Senator Rehman.
On the ‘incessant shameless’ borrowing by the government, she said, “with external debt and liabilities growing by dollars 6.5 billion this year, and increase in Central Government Debt until March 2017 by Rs1.2 trillion the debt stands at a staggering Rs20.25 trillion. All this bank borrowing, treasury bills, permanent debt, project loans, external loans will all be paid for by future taxes”.
She voiced her concern over the outrageous supplementary budget and went on to say, “At least do not insult the people of Pakistan by charging an over-run of 19 percent on the supplementary budget. This is expenditure that is not approved by parliament.”
“Over Rs227 billion has been allocated for PM’s pet schemes and the proposed Public Sector Development Programme further includes 153 schemes which will cost a whopping Rs9.2 trillion to complete the proposed projects. Prioritizing these business generating projects instead of spending on human capital is further going to cripple the nation,” Vice President PPPP noted.
“Just to put things in perspective, if the Rs310 billion supplementary budget were to be saved, 20 million lady health workers could be added to our tattered primary health system. Or 1.7 million teachers could be hired for our 22 million children out of school. Unfortunately, the money is going to pointless leisurely expenditures and debt servicing which sums up to Rs.1.65 trillion of the total budget,” the senator said.
MQM Senator Tahir Hussain Mashhadi alleged that the budget was again for the elite and added it was prepared by the elite for the elite while people were resorting to committing suicides. “Instead of a begging bowl, the rulers have taken it up in their hands,” he alleged.
PML-N Senator Ghous Bakhsh Niazi claimed that Panama Leaks was a global plot against the PML-N government and said the justice-giving institutions were being brought under pressure.
Through a calling attention notice regarding malfunctioning of 70 water pumps and 13 water tankers and overall shortage of water in Islamabad, they drew the attention of the government that strict action should be taken against the Capital Development Authority (CDA) as it was doing nothing.
In response, State Minister for Interior Baleeghur Rehman said that efforts were being made to ensure availability of water to the residents of the capital. He said that 58.8 million gallons of water were being provided to the capital through difference sources.
He pointed out 22 tube-wells had been repaired enabling them to add water supply to the residence of the Federal Capital while thirty tube-wells will be made functional in coming weeks.
Chairman Senate Raza Rabbani and members condemned the recent surge in Indian atrocities in occupied Kashmir and regretted the silence of the international community over the state terrorism being perpetrated by the Indian forces there.
They said that honoring an Indian major Lalit Gogoi by the Indian Army Chief for using Kashmiri youth as human shield was an insult to humanity and human rights groups should take note of it.