Govt had no right to present full year’s budget: Siraj

LAHORE: Jamaat e Islami Ameer Senator Sirajul Haq has said the present government which is completing its term after two months has no right to present budget for the full year.

The PML-N government has gone beyond its mandate and deprived the next elected government of its constitutional right to present the next year’s budget, he said while commenting on the federal budget on Friday. On the merits of the budget, he said, the next year’s deficit budget presented a picture of a poor economy being run on loans which exposed all government claims of development and prosperity.

He said there was nothing in the budget for the tribal areas or any big package for Karachi. Likewise, the raise in salaries and pensions was not commensurate with the increase in prices. He said the government had failed to provide relief to the masses in view of the fall in the petroleum products' prices in the world market.

No special effort had been made to improve the situation in the education and health sectors, he added. Sirajul Haq said that for the presentation of budget, the government had allocated the office of a federal minister to a person who was neither a member of the parliament nor an elected person.