Budget faces fire in first Senate debate

The Senate on Saturday began discussion on the next financial year budget.

Initiating the debate on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition Raza Rabbani said it was the budget of the elite class and big businesses. He said budgetary proposals were against the spirit of federalism and provincial autonomy.

Moreover, he said the proposed imposition of one percent GST would have a domino effect and the prices of different commodities would increase even further. He further said that the budget would hit the working‚ lower‚ middle and professional class.

Furthermore, he said that keeping in view the overall impact on the budget‚ ten percent increase of the salaries of civil servants was insufficient. He criticised the PML-N for not proposing any increase in the minimum wage of labourers.

Jaffar Iqbal said the government was determined to settle circular debt in two months time to overcome the energy crisis. He said 3G technology auction would be conducted in a transparent way. He said in the budget a Qarza-e-Hasana scheme had been proposed and for this purpose, five billion rupees had been allocated. He said fifty percent of this amount would be given to women as Qarza-e-Hasana.

Ilyas Bilour said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces had been affected badly by terrorism but no measures had been proposed in the budget for the redressal of the people of these provinces. He said taxes proposed in the budget would put extra burden on the poor. He termed the budget as moderate and appreciated the abolition of discretionary funds.