LAHORE: Finance Minister Abdul Hafiz Shaikh and his team visited PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif on Friday seeking endorsement of the reformed GST bill in the National Assembly.
However, the minister had to return empty-handed, without even hope for a second round of talks on the issue.
An insider told Pakistan Today that the team tried for more than three hours to convince Nawaz but remained unsuccessful. He said the delegation tried to persuade Nawaz that the misunderstanding on the reformed GST bill was part of propaganda against it and a thorough presentation could help address the apprehensions on it.
Shaikh told Nawaz that if he wanted a comprehensive presentation on the bill, his team was prepared for it, the insider added.
Pleading his case, the finance minister complained to Nawaz that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who was also present in the meeting, had agreed on the reformed GST but later reneged.
However, all his attempts to soften the PML-N’s stance on the bill proved futile as Nawaz did not budge an inch despite repeated requests for a second thought on the issue, another source said.
In response, the PML-N chief said he would welcome a presentation on the reformed GST for a better understanding but his party could not sanction the bill unless the five points raised in a letter to President Asif Ali Zardari were implemented. He said the reformed GST was anti-people in character and its enforcement would entail another price hike escalating the cost of living.
“Our party will not allow this tax to be enforced at any cost in a unison action with other political parties because the GST is a recipe for complete economic disaster,” he said, adding that if the government was looking at the repressive tax as an instrument of a revenue boost, it was mistaken because such an objective could not be achieved in the presence of rampant corruption.
He said public corporations cultivated a corruption of billions of rupees and if the amount was brought down even to half of the existing quantum, the country would save more than the revenue expected from the enforcement of the reformed GST.
PML-N spokesman Pervaiz Rashid told Pakistan Today that all pointes had been cleared in the meeting and there was hardly a chance of another round of talk on the issue.
