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Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) on Saturday termed the federal budget 2012-13 disappointing and said that it lacked remedial measures to cope with the looming energy crisis or measures to recover written off loans amounting to Rs 300 billion, necessary to overcome the power crisis. Speaking at a press conference, PML-N leader and former finance minister Ishaq Dar grilled the government and its economic team for tall claims and unrealistic budgetary figures.
Arguing that besides other issues, the country was currently facing a serious energy crisis, which had shaken domestic economy. The proposed allocation of Rs 183 billion for the power sector would not be enough to overcome the power crisis, he said.
Criticising the government, he said that the rulers were not serious in steering the country out of the worsening energy crisis, adding that the government's short- and long-term strategies to cope with the challenge had not succeeded. As a short-term solution, he suggested that the loans amounting to Rs 300 billion which had written off on political grounds should immediately be recovered and the circular debt should be paid to overcome power outages. The existing power units could also be upgraded to generate an extra 1,200 megawatts of electricity, he maintained.
For long-term strategy, he said that his party's Punjab government has given several fruitful suggestions to the Council of Common Interest (CCI), adding that 4,908MW more electricity could be produced by completing the Nandipur power plant, which had been stalled for the past two and half years. He also lamented that the proposed programme of 2007-12, under which 11,708 MW of electricity was supposed to be produced, was still on paper.
Dar said that the country was facing enormous problems, and poverty and unemployment were the most serious ones, for which the government did not have the capability to come up with a realistic solution. He pointed out that price hikes had pushed up the prices by as much as "500 percent" while the government is printing currency notes.
He also grilled the government for claiming it could create 100,000 more jobs, saying that the government should come up with sensible measures to overcome unemployment. He said that the poor condition of national exchequer did not allow the government to create jobs in such large numbers.
"For this purpose, the only option (available) with the government is to print more currency notes which will (again) trigger inflationary-spiral...it is nothing but a lollypop of promises," he said, adding that the national budget should be realistic, instead of being election-oriented.
He pointed out that more than 49 percent Pakistanis were living below the poverty line. Expressing his party's disappointment over the new budget, he said that no concrete steps had been taken to resolve the people's problems. Dar opposed perks and privileges proposed in the budget for former presidents and prime ministers and urged the government to withdraw the proposal.
He hit out at the government for huge borrowing in the current fiscal year that increased debt-to-GDP ratio from 55.5 percent last year to 58.2 percent during the current fiscal year. He said that the country's total debts had been doubled during the current government's tenure, having gone up from Rs 6,050 billion (during the Musharraf regime) to Rs 12,024 billion in 2011-12. Whereas, the total debt on June 30, 1999 during the Nawaz Sharif government was just Rs 2,946 billion, he pointed out.
Referring to external debts and liabilities, Dar said that it had been doubled, jumping from Rs 30 billion in 1999 to Rs 60 billion during the present government's tenure. About the unemployment, he said that there were 2,370,000 unemployed persons in the country according to statistics during June 1999, which increased to 3,400,000 in June 2011 "which shows an increase of 43 percent".
Dar said that another serious problem which the upcoming government would inherent would be projects left incomplete by the current government, costing Rs 1,800 billion. He opposed supplementary grants of Rs 425 billion, saying that this practice should come to an end.
The PML-N, he said, was in favour of transparent defence budget. However, he added that there should be no compromise on the country's nuclear and missile programmes. Dar also supported taxing the agriculture sector, but added that it should be uniform. He said that it was a provincial subject and had nothing to do with the federal government. He said that a summary sent by the Punjab government in this regard was in front the CCI, which called for imposition of uniform agriculture tax.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2012

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