Leader of the Opposition in Senate Muhammad Ishaq Dar on Monday said the federal budget lacked vision, direction, appropriate development strategy and adequate measures to correct structural macroeconomic imbalances, all of which were essential requirements to improve the health of economy leading to betterment of the quality of life of suffering poor of the country.
Delivering his speech in the Upper House, Dar said the development strategy of the government appeared to be working for the elite, of the elite and by the elite.
“No serious effort has been made, on the contrary, to address the agonies of the poor masses of Pakistan. Both fiscal indiscipline and monetary expansion including the government’s budgetary borrowing have set new record of double digit inflation that eroded the real income of the people already under immense economic stress,” he said.
He said the federal budget had set an ambitious tax revenue target of Rs 2,381 billion with direct taxes contributing to only Rs 932 billion. The rest will be indirect taxes affecting the poor, he added. “The revenue target is unrealistic and not achievable given the track record of our revenue collection agencies.”
Dar said the low tax-to-GDP ratio restricted the country’s ability to counter inflation, deliver quality public services or improve human resources to reach a take-off stage for economic development.
He pointed out that it had been stated in the Economic Survey 2011-12 that the real GDP growth rate during the year was 3.7%.
Dar added the Consumer Price Index (CPI) had registered an increase of 10.84% during July-April 2011-12, with food inflation recorded at 11.1% and non-food inflation at 10.7%. The former minister said poverty in Pakistan was still pervasive.
“The main causes of poverty in Pakistan are a lack of asset ownership, inaccessibility to services, lack of employment opportunities, voiceless-ness and powerlessness of the poor and vulnerability to shocks. The present government has not addressed these poverty related issues in an effective manner,” he said.
“A pro-poor growth strategy has to focus on the structural factors behind poverty and ensure better access of the poor to the resources, credit, skills, information, land, means of livelihood and a pro-active participation in the development process as the major stakeholders and masters of their destiny,” he added.
