PTI regime lags far behind PML-N in legislative business

LAHORE: Having taken oath on August 18, 2018 as country’s 22nd Premier Imran Khan is now in office for 229 days, but his government has succeeded to get just six bills passed in the National Assembly, which thus means that the current Lower House of Parliament has averagely spent 38.16 days for the passage of each bill, research conducted by the “Jang Group and Geo Television Network” shows.

On the contrary, the previous PML-N government had passed a total of 189 bills during its stipulated five-year tenure, or 37.8 bills during each of the five years.

The PML-N had thus taken 9.66 days to get each bill passed from the National Assembly, besides passing 136 Acts of Parliament. Research shows that during PML-N’s tenure, as many as 11 bills were passed during the first parliamentary year 2013-14, eight bills in the second parliamentary year 2014-15, 50 bills in 2015-16, 57 bills in 2016-17 and 63 bills in 2017-18.

Moreover, for the first time in the history of National Assembly, seven bills were passed in the joint sitting, of which four were private member bills. About 16 private member bills became laws during the tenure of the previous National Assembly. However, the PTI government has accused the two main opposition parties—the PML-N and the PPP—for creating hurdles in the legislative business and has blamed them for hampering it through what it dubs “rowdy” behaviour aimed at sabotaging the accountability process taking its course against Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari.

As far as the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) government is concerned, it has certainly not seen many good news greeting it since during the first 200 plus days in power.

And the latest adverse development is the Asian Development Bank (ADB)’s forecast that Pakistan’s economic growth is expected to dip to 3.9 per cent in fiscal year 2019, meaning thereby that many macroeconomic challenges will continue to haunt the incumbent regime.

Despite initiating steps to tighten fiscal and monetary policies, the latest ADB report has noted that the budget and current account deficits have now widened, and foreign exchange reserves are draining.

Surging inflation, stagnant exports, heavy government borrowing from the State Bank, a balance of payments crisis, soaring domestic gas and electricity tariffs are thus some of the macroeconomic imbalances that need to be harnessed and reined.

The PTI government has been slammed regularly by its political foes for increasing gas tariffs by 143 per cent and for hiking the electrify tariffs for domestic users by Rs 2.70. However, Finance Minister Asad Umar and the Minister of State for Revenue, Hammad Azhar, have often asserted that the gas tariffs have been cascaded with a 10 per cent increase for lowest consumer group and a 143 per cent increase for the highest income groups.

The men in power have insisted that although any government running the national affairs is bound to notify Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) prices within 15 days, their predecessors (PML-N) had failed to do so for 2.5 years, hence leading to losses of Rs 150 billion in just two years.

About the hike in electricity tariff, those at the helm of affairs have publicly contended that there has been no increase for 70 per cent of the consumers falling in the lowest consumption bracket, though the tariff increase will only affect the highest income groups.

Then, the government ministers have often alleged that the power sector losses had increased by Rs 452 billion within just one year of the PML-N rule, and that they have inherited the mess in this context. On allegations that the FOREX reserves have dipped by $1.75 billion since they assumed power, government functionaries have maintained that during PML-N’s tenure, the FOREX reserves were depleting at a rate of approximately $1 billion per month.

The PTI ministers have held that their government not only arrested this slide after its six months, but FOREX reserves had actually risen by $40 million in January 2019.

Responding to PML-N allegation that new taxes worth Rs178.00 billion were imposed in the mini budget, the PTI loyalists holding important portfolios in the government have categorically denied this accusation, saying taxes worth Rs 90 billion were only levied on luxury goods and consumption items of high income groups, while the remainder (Rs 92 billion) was part of the administrative measures, and as such, there were no new taxes.

Answering opposition’s claims that internal and external debt volume has increased by over Rs 2,000 billion during the PTI regime, Asad Umar and Hammad Azhar have repeatedly mentioned that Rs 1,300 billion of the Rs 2,000 billion debt volume was due to devaluation’s impact on old debt stock that was borrowed by the PPP and the PML-N.

They have added that the remaining borrowing during the first six months of this ongoing fiscal was less than the same corresponding period last year.

Government claims on inflation blues: Inflation has almost doubled from last year’s levels.

PTI’s reaction:

Inflation was 5.8 per cent when the PML-N had left the power corridors. It has not doubled in PTI’s first six months. In fact, inflation did double up during PML-N government’s first six months in 2013.

Government claims on tax revenue growth:

Tax revenue growth has been the worst in 20 years. The GDP growth is in a fast decline with large scale manufacturing in negative, agriculture growth almost stagnant.

PTI’s reaction:

The PML-N regime had missed its revenue target by Rs 260 billion in outgoing year, and yet gave its last budget that dried up more than Rs100 billion of the state’s revenue streams.

Then, around Rs100 billion of telecom taxes were stayed by the Supreme Court in June 2018, and PTI regime had opted to reduce General Sales Tax on petroleum products from 28 per cent to 17 per cent during its first three months, which led to a revenue decline of Rs 60 billion.