PML-N always presented budget for privileged class: Imran

ISLAMABAD: The PTI chairman Imran Khan Saturday said that as in the past, the PML-N government has presented a budget for the privileged class.
Imran said if the government was really serious in providing relief to the masses, it would have brought down sales tax from 17 percent to 12 percent, causing fall of petrol and diesel prices by Rs12 and Rs06 per litre, respectively. “Through this measure, automatically prices of commodities would have come down accordingly,” he noted.
At a news conference held at his residence, the PTI chief specially focussed on the new budget, which he described as extremely disappointing. He was flanked by Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Jehangir Tareen, Dr Shireen Mazari, Naeemul Haq and Asad Umar. Imran claimed that during the last two years, there had been an increase of 1.5 million in the pool of unemployed people in Pakistan.
He lamented that the government had failed to net the tax, power and gas thieves and also could not bring back 200 billion dollars of Pakistanis, stashed in foreign banks and Asif Ali Zardari’s 60 million dollars. He reminded the ruling PML-N, how it used to talk about recovery of wealth kept in other countries by the Pakistanis.
Pakistanis, he pointed out, were shifting their wealth abroad and during the last three months alone, properties worth Rs38 billion were purchased in Dubai. “But the government is not bothered about it, as the rulers themselves have kept their wealth abroad,” he charged.
Imran noted that unlike Western democracies, where taxes were collected from the rich and spent on the poor, in Pakistan, the government burdened the masses with more taxes to the benefit of the rich and mighty. The PTI chairman lamented that the PML-N government never imposed tax on a segment of the society from which it benefited. He added that through SROs, a specific class of people had been given benefits.
He questioned the government’s progress over the list of 3.2 million persons, who were extremely rich, owned big houses, stayed abroad but did not pay taxes back home. Imran assailed the PML-N regime for its miserable failure to broaden the tax net and instead resorting to regressive indirect taxation.
He made it clear that the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) would only deliver after it was made independent and the much-needed reforms were carried out in it. He added that in their shadow budget, they had envisaged Rs25 billion for this purpose. He called for complete de-politicisation of the Bureau.
Replying to questions, he said that growers could have been given relief by cutting down the sales tax, as it would have reduced prices of oil and fertiliser. He added that spending on farmers meant spending on Pakistan and their benefit would benefit Pakistan.
On the question of rigging in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa local bodies polls, Imran said all political parties could have taken a decision to hold polls afresh and the ruling provincial coalition was also ready for that. However, fearing of likely results, some opposition parties, he noted, had opted for agitation.