Members from both sides of the aisle in the Upper House on Monday urged the government to accelerate efforts to overcome the energy crisis and root out corruption.
“Institutional corruption has become order of the day. It is eating away the very vitals of our society. The government should be more proactive in punishing the guilty,” said Senator Tahir Hussain Mashhadi of the MQM while taking part in the budget debate.
He said the MQM gave solid suggestions to the finance minister before the budget was prepared and they should have been incorporated. He proposed to decrease petroleum prices saying, “Even a minor reduction in petroleum prices will provide a big relief to the masses.” He said some analysts were saying that Pakistan’s defence budget was half of the total federal budget which he said was not true. “This is a grave misunderstanding. The army is actually getting 9.5 percent of the budget, while Fauji Foundation and its other welfare institutions are contributing billions of rupees in taxes,” he added.
He pointed out that India was continuously increasing its defence budget, while Pakistan’s defence was constantly decreasing. Mashhadi said people were suffering due to power outages, price hike, unemployment and the government should take immediate steps to redress their grievances. He underlined the need to provide state-of-the-art equipment to law enforcement agencies for improving their efficiency.
He proposed to improve the standard of education in the country and added that salaries of teachers should be increased. He also suggested reducing sales tax from 16 percent to 12 percent, adding that the minimum wage of labourers should be set at Rs 10,000. Taking part in the debate, Saeedul Hassan Mandokhail of the PML-Q said hard realities had been ignored while preparing the federal budget. He said people were facing a host of problems due to load shedding. He proposed that PML-Q chief Shujaat Hussain’s formula should be adopted to resolve the energy crisis. He asked the government to also consider proposals given by Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Ishaq Dar for solving energy problem and other issues. He asked all political leaders to sit together and find out a proper solution of the situation in Balochistan and Karachi.
PPP’s Sehar Kamran Muddasir said despite global slowdown Pakistan had managed to maintain its exports during July-April 2012 to last year’s level, which saw a phenomenal growth. “This is the result of Strategic Trade Policy Framework introduced by the government and the resulting increase in exports to China, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.” She said foreign exchange reserves had also witnessed a significant increase, while per capita income had risen from $990 to $1152. Sehar said power shortage and load shedding was a big crisis. “Although various steps have been taken to solve the crisis, there is a need of long-term planning,” she said.