KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader of opposition in Sindh Assembly, Firdous Shamim Naqvi along with PTI parliamentary leader Halim Adil Shaikh here on Saturday felicitated Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan and his team for introducing a public-friendly budget for fiscal year (FY) 2020-21.
Addressing a press conference, they also expressed their reservations about budget-related objections raised by the parliamentarians belonging to Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N).
Naqvi highlighted that no new tax has been introduced in the budget for 2020-21 and that the PTI government also reflected upon its plan to revise revenue collection mechanism so as to generate much-needed resources.
“One thing I know is that allocations for social net have been significantly increased,” he said mentioning that this is besides significant reduction in the duties to help stabilise local industries and strengthen different sectors that have been badly affected due to the pandemic.
“These are the main sources of employment for the local population,” said the PTI leader.
Rubbishing those critical of the PTI government’s budget for coming fiscal year, Naqvi said they perhaps want an absolutely tax free budget which is but an unrealistic desire.
“What they forget is that lack of will to pay taxes and paving the way to generate national resources does compromise independence of the country,” said Naqvi.
“The harsh fact is that taxes presently collected are mainly spent under two major heads, therefore, a nine per cent deficit budget is registered with tax to GDP ratio coming to 12 per cent leaving the country with little option but to arrange the needed three per cent through loans,” elaborated the senior political activist.
Emphasising that concerted efforts are needed to raise government earnings, for which a target of Rs1.1 trillion has been set under the budget for coming fiscal year, Naqvi regretted that opposition parties are criticizing this for sake of criticism.
In reply to a question, he said the PTI government will not make any compromise to national defence requirements, particularly in view of hegemonistic designs of a country on the eastern border, nor will go against its international agreement that required debt servicing.
“The federal government is trying its best to contain non-development expenditures,” he said reiterating that public sector entities are not being closed nor are people being rendered jobless.
PTI leader in the provincial assembly mentioning that he himself had presented a shadow budget for Sindh only last year advised opposition parties to come forward with one for the country this year.
Halim Adil Shaikh, Parliamentary Leader of the PTI and the party’s Central Vice President said the opposition leaders representing the elite segments of the country are critical of the budget as it would help bring into the tax net the luxury goods and non-development segments.
“It is difficult for them to accept that duties have been revised, on the lower sides, for local manufacturing units meeting basic needs of the people as residential facilities, textile, clothing, shoes and other essential items,” claimed the leader.
Terming the federal budget as a major relief oriented intervention for the masses against a series of challenges faced by the government, Haleem Adil said achievements of the PTI during the fiscal year 2019-2020 can also not be ignored.
“PTI government successfully managed to return a significant amount procured as loans from different international organisations besides procuring no loan from State Bank of Pakistan during the same period reflective of a prudent policy of the government led by our Captain,” he said.
Further substantiating his claim, he said reputable agencies as Moody and Bloomberg have repeatedly reported the outstanding performance of the PTI government that helped country’s economic growth which but slowed due to the global Covid- 19 pandemic, hitting each and every country across the globe.
The two leaders belonging to Sindh on the occasion also discussed in detail the performance of the provincial government and its inadequacies at the expense of public well-being.
