Debate on budget in Senate: IMF second grade officers crafted budget: Rabbani

ISLAMABAD: participating in the debate on Finance Bill 2021-2022 in the Senate, PPP Senator Mian Raza Rabbani Friday retorted that it was said that the budget had been prepared by the Wise Men of Gotham, second grade IMF officers, Pakistani employees of the IMF and crony capitalists.

“IMF is the new East India Company. Pakistan has willingly bartered its financial sovereignty and knowingly become a colony of financial colonialism,” he said. Rabbani recalled that on June 11 while talking in a TV show, the Finance Minister said ‘the IMF has asked Pakistan to present its budget so that negotiations would continue’.

“This also implies that the debate in both Houses and the voting of the budget in the National Assembly is a farce. The actual budget will be decided at the conclusion of the IMF negotiations. Therefore, sovereignty rests with the IMF and not with the Parliament,’ he continued.

“It is a matter of shame that in his post-budget press conference, the finance minister says we have asked for six months extension in the construction amnesty scheme. This again proves that financial decisions are not of the Government of Pakistan but of the IMF”.

Rabbani said Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr. Waqar Masood Khan, in another talk show, said the IMF had some reservations about not increasing the electricity tariff and new sources of taxes generation.

He said it was decided that power tariff would be increased by Rs4 per unit. The electricity rates have already been increased by Rs1.95 per unit and the increase of Rs1.90 per unit has only been delayed.

Similarly, he added it had already been admitted that electricity tariff had been increased by 40% under the IMF agreement. “The government feels that it has an advantage with the United States, in terms of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Therefore, it could use its leverage with the US to soften the IMF. What is the political price?” he wondered and again noted that military bases, ground support or air corridors to facilitate aerial reconnaissance would be heavy prices to pay.

The finance minister, he noted, in his post-budget press conference had said that petrol price hike was expected in future. Petroleum levy under the dictates of the IMF has to be taken up to Rs20 per liter. On June 15, 2021 when the budget was still under discussion, the government increased the prices of petrol and diesel products by over Rs2.5. He also questioned the fundamental and sweeping powers for the FBR and customs officers for arresting and prosecuting the tax payers and retailers proposed in the finance bill.

Rabbani pointed out that the Parliament was being asked to give post-facto approval to a record Rs1.248 trillion supplementary grant for expenditure overruns and re- appropriation, whereas in the last fiscal year this figure stood at Rs545 billion.

Taking part in the discussion, PMLN Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed asked the government to review and reverse its recent cabinet decision to mortgage its airports and motorways to get external loans, saying, “You cannot pledge your strategic assets. This is out of question”.

Referring to the situation in Afghanistan in the backdrop of withdrawal of US troops and ongoing infighting in that country, he said the US was leaving behind a huge mess it had created for Pakistan.

He advocated adoption of a national approach based on clarity and said the US needed Pakistan more than Pakistan needed it, as ‘we have a strategic space’. After the concluding speech of finance minister, the session was prorogued sine die.