Rabbani terms budget anti-people, anti-labourer

ISLAMABAD: As members of the Senate continued debate on the budgetary proposals, the former Chairman of the House Mian Raza Rabbani termed the budget anti-people and anti-labourer having no priorities to spend on the common man.

Taking part in debate, Raza Rabbani said the defence budget had been increased by 10% to Rs1.1 trillion while there had also been no reduction in budget for the President House whereas the development budget had reduced.

He also mentioned there was an unexplained allocation of Rs4.35 billion allowed to Director General ISI for accomplishment of a special assignment. He pointed when one of questioners during post-budget press conference asked the finance minister about the special allocation; he was told such secret information could not be disclosed openly.

Raza Rabbani demanded in-camera session of the National Assembly and Senate to explain the special assignment. “The parliamentarians should be told as to what you mean by the special assignment,” he said.

He also said the defence allocation also did not include Rs2060 billion as pension of retired defence employees. “This allocation for payment of pension to retired employees of armed forces is 70% of the total pension to be paid to retired government servants,” he said.

Former Senate chairman also strongly opposed proposal given by a member from treasury benches about bringing the education sector on the concurrent list saying that education was rightly devolved to province as per the 18th amendment.

He also pointed out that the budgetary proposals also contain the Tax Amnesty scheme which had been given to whiten the black money. “Should we also stop paying taxes and ask the government to announce a scheme for tax payers,” he questioned.

Raza Rabbani said the government should not have presented this budget as it is the prerogative of next government to present budget for the whole fiscal year. He regretted that the current budget was presented without NFC award.

Chaudhry Tanvir Khan urged the political parties to sit together on charter of economy to put Pakistan on path of development and prosperity. He said the government has successfully revamped economy, overcome energy crisis and defeated terrorism in the country. He said an investment of about fifty billion dollars have come under China-Pakistan-Economic-Corridor.

Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah of PML-Functional said that the government should focus special attention on agriculture sector. He said that standardized seeds and fertilizers should be provided to farmers on affordable rates to get best yields. He said this year cash crops like cotton and wheat achieved their targets and now Pakistan is exporting wheat.

PTI Leader Samina Saeed said that government presented an election budget which can never be termed as pro-people. She said new dams should be constructed in the country to meet the energy and irrigations requirements.

Immamuddin Shouqeen of PPP said the government should immediately withdraw increase in petroleum prices. Nauman Wazir Khattak of PTI said the budget will contribute nothing to take the country forward. He said tax base will have to be expanded to strengthen economy and development.