ISLAMABAD: The upper house of the Parliament on Monday started debate on Finance Bill-2017, containing the annual budget statement, under Article 73 of the Constitution.
Participating in the debate, Senator Chaudhry Tanveer Hussain said that Pakistan Muslim League (N) has presented an ideal and balanced budget in the Parliament.
He said that due to prudent economic policies, the country is moving in the right direction.
He expressed the hope that if this pace of progress is continued, the country would become a leading economy soon. He said that several incentives have been announced in the proposed budget to give relief to the poor segment of the country.
He said that the government has achieved all targets set in last year’s budget. He added it was the vision of the PML-N leadership that now people from neglected areas including Balochistan are satisfied with the policies of the government.
He said people of these neglected areas are happy on the on-going development projects initiated by the government in these areas under the leadership of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
He said that China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has become an important project for the entire country and all provinces will get benefits of this mega project.
He congratulated Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar and his whole team for presenting an ideal budget.
Participating in the debate, Senator Saleem Mandviwala stressed the need to streamline the annual economic survey and make it more accurate with regard to figures.
He said additional steps should be taken for increasing credibility of the finance bill.
He said that more incentives should be announced in the budget for low salaried class and poor segment of the society. He added more allocations should be made for health and education sector.
He said that steps should be taken for ensuring provision of soft drinking water to the citizens besides overcoming energy deficit issue.
He said that 10 percent increase in salary is not sufficient and urged for sufficient increase in salary of government employees.
He said that mechanism of tax collection should be strengthened to collect more taxes in order to improve the economy of the country. He said that the government should pay more focus on remittances to generate foreign currency besides manpower.
