Budget, IMF, change of financial team echo in Senate

ISLAMABAD: The opposition and government in the Senate Friday indulged into a debate on the budget due to be presented for the new fiscal year on June 11.

Former Senate chairman and PPP legislator Raza Rabbani on a point of public importance expressed concern over the changes in the financial team of with the budget unveiling in the second week of the next month.

“The budget is likely to be presented on June 11 and weeks before it the finance minister had been replaced by a special assistant to the prime minister on finance whereas the finance secretary has also been changed almost two weeks before the budget is to be announced,” he pointed out.

Rabbani maintained that this clearly showed that a totally new finance team was now in place and these steps taken in recent weeks and days clearly indicated that the budget-making exercise had not been carried out in the finance ministry: Rather, the ministry has been given a ready-made budget by the IMF.

He went on to claim that the upcoming budget would be the IMF budget and the government would be just implementing it.

Terming the budget anti-people, Rabbani noted that the aspirations of the masses had not been kept in view while preparing it and asserted “we are not ready to accept such a budget”.

To this, Leader of the House in the Senate Dr Shahzad Waseem rose to respond to Rabbani’s assertions and maintained that the objection raised by the PPP Senator was unfounded regarding PM’s financial team and said it was a prerogative of the prime minister to change his team.

“The macro- economic indicators clearly reflect the success of government’s economic policies. The budget is yet to be announced and it is unfair to dub it as anti-people today on the basis of mere assumptions. This mindset shows you cannot go beyond point scoring,” he said.

About Rabbani’s remarks about the IMF, he contended that it was not for the first time that a government had gone to the IMF. He continued that the incumbent government had a target of transforming the economy to a level where the IMF support would not be needed.

He advised the opposition to desist from creating issues out of non-issues while assuring the House that the positive suggestions on the budget would be incorporated.

“The upcoming budget will be people-friendly and as per their aspirations,” he noted while the process of reforms was already under way.

PML-N Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed while speaking on May 28 nuclear tests said the military establishment had no role to play in the decision to carry out nuclear tests 23 years ago, which were carried out in response to the India’s tests.

Senator Mushahid recalled that while then army chief Jehangir Karamat had asked the civilian government to decide the matter, then naval chief suggested against conducting nuclear tests. He said then air chief believed that Pakistan must go for nuclear tests.

Then US President Bill Clinton, he also noted, had called then prime minister Nawaz Sharif to exercise restraint and offered $5 billion if nuclear tests would not be conducted, but Mushahid recalled Nawaz Sharif did not succumb to any pressure in this connection.

Meanwhile, the controversy over water sharing between Punjab and Sindh again made its way to the House for the second consecutive day when PPP Senator from Sindh Mola Bakhsh Chandio objected to the speech of PTI legislator Ejaz Chaudhry who had tried to justify the opening of TP-link canal.

Senator Ejaz had claimed that the 1991 Water Accord provided right to Punjab to take its share from point of its choice and that the losses being shown by Sindh were incorrect. He had proposed formation of a committee consisting of representatives from Punjab, Sindh and even from two other provinces and a member of the Senate to look into the charges aired by Sindh against Punjab and how much water was coming to Punjab and then going out of it.

He had also blamed the past governments, including the democratic and the dictatorial rules, for not building water reservoirs as per the accord for the last over 30 years, which caused issues among provinces after every two three years. He pointed out there was 67 per cent lesser water in Tarbela and 83 lesser in Mangla.

Reacting to it, Senator Chandio was on his feet to emphasise that the accord needed to be reviewed, as it was totally unacceptable to Sindh and it was not being implemented fairly.

“We shall not let ‘gunda gardi’ in the name of the accord by a province, as Pakistan is a federation and federation is not the name of one province,” he said.

“The matter related to water is not that simple; it is very sensitive and a matter of life and death. Experts should be asked, how important it is to let a certain quantity of water falling in to the sea,” he said in response to remarks made by Senator Ejaz and some treasury senators Thursday.

Raza Rabbani of the PPP rose to say though Senator Ejaz had talked about setting up a committee the appropriate forum would be the Senate committee of the whole, wherein the chief ministers, provincial governments’ representatives and water experts and other stake-holders would be able to participate.

During the question-hour, the House was informed that the existing minting facility at Pakistan Mint, Lahore, was established in 1943. The machinery, equipment and infrastructure were 78 years old. Since its inception, Pakistan Mint has never undergone any major revamp. Thus modernization of this important national asset is very essential to make it on a par with the international mints.

Keeping in view the dire need of its modernization and up-gradation, a PC-I for PSDP project titled “Modernization and Up-gradation of Pakistan Mint Phase-II-A” worth Rs1,790 million has been approved by Departmental Development Working Party (DDWP) in its meeting held on June 8, 2020.

However, no funds could be allocated for execution of this project in year 2020-2021 due to paucity of time, as the project was approved in the mid of June, 2020. The project will come into its execution phase once the required funds of Rs100 million are allocated for the next FY 2021-2022.