Budget debate wrapped up in Senate

ISLAMABAD: State Minister for Finance Rana Muhammad Afzal concluded the budget debate in the Senate without facing interruption from the opposition parties, which had rejected the budget, 2018-19, as constitutional, immoral and illegal.

Though, opposition senators, particularly those belonging to Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had delivered fiery speeches while taking part in the budget debate, they chose to maintain order, as the minister wound up the exercise.

Winding up the debate, the state minister heaped praise on the government for the budget while painting a rosy picture of the record sixth budget of the outgoing PML-N government. He emphasised, “without assistance of Ishaq Dar and Adviser to the prime minister on revenue Haroon Akhtar, we could not have given such a wonderful budget…the sixth budget, I would say is the best of the budgets, we presented during the last five years”.

He said, “we had a wish to boost our trade with India, Afghanistan, Iran and central Asian countries, but we couldn’t succeed in this as it could have boosted our economy”. He urged all political parties to build a consensus, as to what could be done about sick industrial units such Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) and the loss-making entities like Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). “We all should sit together and take a unanimous decision whether it should be improved or privatized,” he noted.

Another major issue, which the minister said should also be resolved through consensus by all the parties was circular debt, which has again piled up to a precarious level of billions of rupees despite settling the previous overdue bills of both the public and private power producers and their fuel suppliers for the pre-March 2013 period.

About the meager allocation for water resources in the budget, the minister contended that the time had come the province, who were resisting construction of Kalabagh Dam, to review their decision as the country’s water crisis might get worse if big reservoirs were not constructed.

The minister was grateful to the opposition parties for extending their support in passing of the budget. “I am grateful to all my opposition colleagues, who worked very hard during the standing committee meetings in finalising the proposals put forth by the members, and I assure we’ll try our level best to accommodate them,” he said.

Referring to the criticism coming from the provinces that their rights had been usurped by the centre, he said that after 18th constitutional amendment, Rs2.5 trillion extra have gone to provinces, which reflected they would be having no shortage of resources.

The minister said, “the provinces have no shortage of resources and what they needed capacity, for which they should seek help from Punjab, which is utilising all its funds quite efficiently compared to other provinces”. About the much-criticised recent tax amnesty scheme, Afzal conceded that it was possible the scheme might benefit some black sheep to whiten their black money, but its advantages will help in bringing back the business tycoons from Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who had shifted their businesses abroad when terrorism was at its peak in the country some years back.

About the claim made by PTI Senator Azam Swati, who accused the ruling PML-N of Rs200 billion technical theft, he said that it was uncalled for and if the senator had any proof he was free to contest his claim to prove his allegations.

However, the minister seconded former chairman Senate Raza Rabbani’s claim that spike in defence budget was not justified, adding Rabbani was absolutely right as 26 percent defence excluding pensions was too big, and both the Senate and the National Assembly should find a solution to it.

The state minister conceded that his party government had not been able to improve the declining exports of the country during the five years. Another failure of outgoing PML-N government, which could not be accomplished, he added, was boosting trade with neighbouring India, Afghanistan and central Asian countries.

The minister accepted that Pakistan already has a depleting reservoir of dollars, which can also be overcome if overseas Pakistanis are provided a conducive environment for making investments in the country. “One of our major economic challenges is that we’re short of dollars.

We want to make investments but we don’t have dollars, for which we should mobilize expatriate Pakistanis to make investment in different sectors especially the energy sector where there is a huge scope,” he said. The House will resume on Friday morning.