Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Tuesday described the imposition of Carbon Tax as “Jagga tax’, saying it had been imposed to counter the Supreme Court’s order to reduce the petroleum prices. “It is a black tax that should be withdrawn immediately,” he said.
Opening the budget debate in the National Assembly, Ch Nisar also reminded the government of its promise of undoing the 17th Constitutional Amendment and making parliament the epicentre of power rather than the Presidency.
In his 80-minute speech, he criticised the government for ‘confused’ economic policies, delaying the formation of the parliamentary committee for repealing the controversial 17th Amendment and increasing the budgetary allocations for the Prime Minister’s House and Presidency.
Describing the budget as a replica of the Musharraf government, Chaudhry Nisar said the government had placed a heavy burden of Rs 200 billion hidden taxes on the people. He also criticised the government for assigning the exercise of preparing the budget to advisers and then asking an elected person to read out the budget speech. “In parliament, the budget was presented by the minister of state for finance while in the media other persons explained the budget,” he added.
Chaudhry Nisar also came down heavily on President Asif Ali Zardari for addressing the nation past midnight to announce the raise in the salaries of armed forces personnel just a few hours before the presentation of the budget in the National Assembly. “Those who so advised the president and the government were not sincere with them. It is the prerogative of the prime minister rather than the president,” he added.
He also questioned the government’s non-serious attitude towards probing the assassination of Benazir Bhutto Shaheed. Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan also censured the government for not taking action against the military dictator who defamed the politicians. He said General Musharraf purchased a flat in London worth millions of pounds. “If a politician purchases such a flat, it becomes a big scandal, but retired generals get away with it,” he added.
He said that the 17th Amendment could be repealed within a few hours but the government had not been able to do so in 15 months. It has even failed to form a parliamentary committee to move in this direction.
Stressing the need to turn parliament into the real power centre, he said: “We want to strengthen parliament rather than the Presidency.”He said the government had given the National Assembly 10 days to pass the budget. “Please don’t take parliament for granted,” he added.
He questioned the wisdom of relying on the promises of the Friends of Pakistan for $5 billion inflows failing which the government would have to go back to the IMF for standby arrangements. He said the withdrawal of subsidies would burden the common man.
He said there was a deficit of Rs 722 billion in the budget, which was to be met by borrowing from the Friends of Pakistan forum or the IMF on hard conditions. He stressed the need for concrete steps to stabilise the economy, strengthen the industrial sector and to boost exports.
He demanded effective steps to eradicate poverty and unemployment and to control the price hike. He suggested that non-development expenditure should be curtailed and maximum funds should be made available for health and education.
He also came down hard on those retired generals who fully supported General Musharraf but were now criticising his policies. Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan clarified that during the Long March, he did not receive any phone call from any general. He said that it was the prime minister’s call in which he told him that the government had in principle decided to restore the judges.
The opposition leader also asked the government to bring the Iran-Pakistan pipeline project before parliament for debate. Presenting his proposals for the budget, Chaudhry Nisar demanded reduction in interest rate, industrial revival package, strengthening of the regulatory institutions such as Nepra, OGRA etc, raise spending on education and health and restoration of PLD on the petroleum products rather than carbon tax.After his speech, Speaker National Assembly Dr Fehmida Mirza clarified that the process of formation of the committee was in final stages and would be completed in a few days.
The speaker said the National Assembly adopted a resolution and assigned her the responsibility to form the committee. “Being the custodian of the House, I am only facilitating the House and holding consultation with 15 parliamentary leaders of both the houses of parliament. There were some issues that have been settled and now the committee would be announced within the next few days,” she said.
Defending the budget, Minister for Privatisation Syed Naveed Qamar said a number of incentives had been proposed in the new budget for the alleviation of poverty and promotion of education and health sectors. He said as a result of wide-ranging steps taken by the government in the outgoing year, the economy was stabilised and trade deficit, budget deficit and current account deficit had narrowed down. He said the government had been able to reduce the inflation rate from 25 per cent to about 12 per cent and hopefully it would come down to single digit by December this year. Referring to the demand for the agriculture tax, the minister said under the Constitution the federal government could not impose this tax as it was the domain of provincial assemblies.
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