Speakers demand higher allocation for social sector in budget

Islamabad
A pre-budget seminar on state of the “Economy and Federal Budget 2015-16 was held by Centre for Policy Studies, CIIT at a hotel here, says a press release.
The objective of the seminar was to assess the state of the economy and suggests policy recommendations for the federal budget 2015-16, which would be helpful in setting policy direction to pull the economy out of the crisis and pave the way on the road to recovery. The seminar provided an opportunity to academia, professionals and civil society to come forward and give recommendations as to how to pull the economy out of current crisis.
Speaking on the occasion, the chief guest, Federal Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Finance Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan said that positive economic change is in the offing as the government is focusing on energy, IT, textile, surgical goods and agricultural services. He emphasised the role of universities in policy formulation.
Minister of state for Privatization Mohammad Zubair, one of the keynote speakers, stressed the value of professional economic journalism and rejected the allegations of dictations by IMF in policy formulation of Pakistan.
Dr. Talat Anwar, Centre for Policy Studies, CIIT Islamabad presented the pre-budget proposal for 2015-16 and emphasised on the need for tax forms by removing distortions in the taxation and improving the documentation of economic sector, both federal and provincial governments can collectively raise more than Rs600 billion additional tax revenues for the forthcoming budget. He further said that human conditions have been poor because education and health has remained the neglected sectors for the successive governments in the country.
The allocation for education including both federal and provincial should be raised currently from 1.8% to 2% of the GDP in the forthcoming budget. Similarly allocation for health should be increased currently from 0.7% to 1% of GDP in the next budget.
Other prominent keynote speakers included Dr. Pervaiz Tahir, former chief economist, Planning Commission, Dr. Ashfaq Hassan Khan, Dr. Vaqar Ahmed (SDPI), Arif Allaudin, Dr. Sania Nishter, Sakib Sherani, and Dr. Hafiz Pasha.
The event was an initiative of the team, headed by former ambassador, Fauziah Nasreen (director, Centre for Policy Studies, CIIT), Professor Dr. Qaisar Abbas (dean, Management Sciences, CIIT) and Dr. Talat Anwar (Centre for Policy Studies, CIIT) under the leadership of the CIIT Rector Dr. S M Junaid Zaidi, who was also present on the occasion.
The seminar concluded with emphasis on the need for tax reforms by removing distortions in the taxation and improving the documentation of economic sector, allocation for education and health sectors.