- PEW says budget lacks short, long-term steps to alleviate poverty, Pakistan cannot afford world costliest metro projects
The Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) on Sunday said that the ruling elite has presented a budget made to benefit the oppressive class which lacks any initiative to lift people out of abject poverty.
The budget will increase the exploitation of the masses as our economic managers who are best at creative accounting are unaware of the ground realities and lack any ability to take short and long-term measures to alleviate poverty, PEW said.
The budget is a repetition of the failed economic model focusing on costly loans to boost foreign exchange reserves to beat drums of success, said PEW President Dr Murtaza Mughal.
He said that foreign exchange reserves cannot be called stable because they are based on loans while the real source to earn foreign exchange are exports which are steadily falling due to disabling environment.
The economic managers continue to praise themselves for reduced budget deficit which is result of slide in international oil prices, he added.
Dr Mughal said that a country like Pakistan that is fully dependent on loans to survive cannot afford symbolic projects like metro buses, the costliest in the world.
“Motorways and metro bus projects have nothing to do with development and everything to do with the ego of rulersm” he said, adding that the metro projects have divided cities, destroyed businesses and damaged the beauty of cities.
The government continue to discourage any improvement in the dysfunctional tax system so that they can enjoy princely living and the five percent nobility has more money than the remaining 95 percent, he concluded.
