Govt says opposition’s claims to fall flat; Won’t allow mini-budget to sail through: Shehbaz

ISLAMABAD: Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly and PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif had called a meeting of parliamentary leaders of all the opposition parties in his chamber of the Parliament House prior to start of the National Assembly session on Monday afternoon.

"We will not allow passage of the mini budget and are working on a strategy in this connection, " Shehbaz Sharif in a statement said. The PML-N spokesperson, Mariyum Aurangzeb, in a statement said the parliamentary leaders of the opposition parties willmeet to adopt a joint strategy to strongly oppose passage of the Finance (Supplementary)Bill, 2021 in the National Assembly.

Minister for Finance Shaukat Tarin will move the Finance (Supplementary) Bill 2021 for consideration of the House which is scheduled to meet at 4 pm on Monday. Marriyum said the PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto will also attend the meeting of parliamentary leaders at 3 pm on Monday.

Besides parliamentary leaders, the parliamentarians and senior leaders of the opposition parties will also attend the meeting. "The meeting will discuss the Finance Supplementary Bill 2021, foreign funding case and other issues.

The PMLN spokesperson said the leadership would devise a strategy to prevent passage of the mini budget. Finance Minister introduced the Finance Supplementary Bill 2021 in the National Assembly amid strong protest by the opposition members, earlier this month.

The bill will provide amendment of certain laws relating to duties and taxes to meet conditions of the IMF for approval of one billion dollars tranche of loan. Meanwhile, in a statement Shehbaz Sharif said the opposition will not allow passage of mini budget which is meant to compromise national security and sovereignty of the country.

" Pakistan's sovereignty will be at stake if mini budget is passed," he said. Shehbaz observed that it would be height foolishness and brutality to find cure to price hike with bitter pill of further hike in prices.

He pointed out that the new name of establishment in Pakistan would be IMF if the mini budget is bulldozer in the National Assembly.On the other hand, the government has said that the Finance Supplementary Bill 2021 and State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Amendment Bill 2021 will sail through Parliament and opposition claims would fall flat.

Talking to the media during his visit to Chiniot on Sunday State Minister for Information & Broadcasting Farrukh Habib said that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has provided complete record of the foreign funding whereas Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is involved in 100 per cent corruption and the PMLN wants judges of its choice in judiciary.

Habib said that Imran Khan was the only political leader who had changed the entire political landscape by documenting each and every penny donated by the Pakistanis from inside and outside the country.

Comparing the PTI with other political parties, he said that the PPP had a track record of corruption and the transactions of billions of rupees in the accounts of ‘Pappar Wala’ and ‘Falooday Wala’ and it had fully been exposed now. He said that Prime Minister Imran Khan decided to purge the country from continuous corruption continuing for the last many decades by the PPP and the PMLN alternatively.

These parties failed to bring a qualitative improvement in the system and now they were trying to put the blame of their blunders on the PTI, which is sincerely struggling to serve masses.

He said that so-called political pundits could not befool masses by criticising the PTI, which had introduced record reforms in the system to facilitate people.

He claimed that political opponents of the PTI were trying to pressurise the state institutions through blatant criticism. Their story of hiring judges had become an open secret and now all state institutions were working within their constitutional ambit, he added. He said that now the judiciary and other organisations would not help them to usurp the power through negative tactics. Criticising leakage of audio tape of Maryam Nawaz, he said that it had exposed her fascist mentality.