There is nothing for common man in federal budget: Senator Siraj ul Haq

Lahore: Ameer, Jamaat e Islami, Pakistan, Senator Siraj ul Haq, has said that the federal budget for the next financial year did not provide any relief to the masses and the targets fixed by the government were unrealistic and unachievable.

He said the budget had disappointed the salaried people as also the general public which had high hopes from the rulers.  He said there won’t be any increase in production as the government policies were not expected to improve the conditions of the industry and agriculture

Commenting on the federal budget, he said that the government had indicated a ten per cent increase in salaries and pensions of employees but that had been cut down to seven and a half per cent which had disappointed the salaried people.

Secondly, he said, the government claimed credit for raising foreign exchange reserves to 16 billion dollars. However, he said, according to official figures, the exports had decreased by three per cent while the actual fall in exports was five per cent. He said the raise in foreign exchange was because of different factors including increase in remittance, the special Saudi grant of 1.5 billion dollars, the sale of Euro bonds of two billion dollars, and also of the Sakuk bonds.

The JI chef noted that last year, the government had fixed target of increase in GDP at 5.1 per cent while the actual increase was 4.2 per cent. Besides, he said, the growth in industry and agriculture had been negligible.  He said the Finance Minister himself had admitted that the budget deficit was 5 per cent.

The JI chief said that the FBR had fixed revenue target at 2.8 trillion which was first reduced to 2.7 trillion and then to 2.6 trillion, but the government policies indicated that this target had not been achieved and this also included Rs. 220 billion refundable to the masses.

Sirajul Haq said that the total budget for the next year was of Rs. 4.7 trillion which included tax revenue of Rs. 3100 billion. He said the GDP growth rate had been fixed at 5.5 and the export target had been fixed at 25.5 billion dollars. He said the exports at present were of 20.6 billion dollars. An amount of 1.5 trillion had been reserved for development projects. This would include 700 billion of the federal government besides 800 from the provincial governments.

He said Rs. 780 billion had been set apart for defense while Rs.227 billion had been allocated for the ministries. He said that all these were paper figures and could not be achieved.