Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians Vice President Senator Sherry Rehman on Tuesday expressed dismay over the budget presented by the federal government.

“The government just stripped people of hope for a better life by telling them it is blithely continuing to tax them to pay for its profligate spending. It is appalling to observe that around 82 to 85 percent of the taxes gained are indirect. The brunt of these failed policies is borne by the poor citizens of the country. They are the ones reeling from power outages. They do not have access to generators, they do not have the cash to buy an extra fan or pay their utility bills,” Rehman said while addressing the Senate.

Senator Rehman said the tax-filer base was withering. “For a country that cannot pay for itself and wants to be sovereign, how is that the tax-filer base is shrinking? Should the poor also shoulder the lavish expenditure of the government?” she asked.

“This is the first government where the finance minister is patting his own back for the farcical record trade imbalance. The government has projected a current account deficit of $10.4 billion due to an increase of $26.9 billion in trade deficit, including Rs 401 billion in circular debt. Instead of being ashamed, they are celebrating for reasons unknown,” she said.

“Big numbers are a proof that the exports are massively declining and the imports are rising. For a country that is the 4th largest cotton producer in the world, how are our exports in such a dire situation? You cannot blame the trade imbalance on CPEC fuelled imports. How can the exports go down to almost $3 billion as compared to PPP’s tenure when oil prices were much higher than what they are today?” Rehman asked.

“From Kashmir to Karachi, the country is under darkness. Not only due to loadshedding, but because we are drowning in debt. On top of that, the government has added surcharges on electricity, which will inadvertently make the poor poorer under these new schemes,” she said.

“The national debt has reached dangerous proportions, but here we are being told that the incumbent government will not require another IMF bailout. Of course we will, we are already planning to borrow $8.1 billion in new loans, on international bond markets where no development finance rates are available, instead there are high interest rates,” Rehman said.

“With external debt and liabilities growing by $6.5 billion this year, the debt stands at a staggering Rs 20.25 trillion. All this bank borrowing, treasury bills, permanent debt, project loans, external loans will be paid for by future taxes,” she said.

The senator voiced her concerns on the “outrageous” supplementary budget. “At least do not insult the people of Pakistan by charging an over-run of 19 percent on the supplementary budget. This expenditure was not approved by the Parliament,” she said.

“Over Rs 227 billion has been allocated for PM’s pet schemes and the proposed Public Sector Development Programme further includes 153 schemes which will cost a whopping Rs 9.2 trillion to complete. Prioritising these business generating projects instead of spending on human capital is further going to cripple the nation,” she said.

“Just to put things in perspective, if the Rs 310 billion supplementary budget were to be saved, 20 million Lady Health Workers could be added to our tattered primary health system. Or 1.7 million teachers could be hired for our 22 million children out of school. Unfortunately, the money is going to leisurely expenditures and debt servicing which sums up to Rs 1.65 trillion of the total budget,” the senator said.