KP opposition boycotts budget debate

-Joint opposition of four-parties parties Thursday boycotted debate on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government's budget 2015-16 against alleged rigging and mismanagement in the recently held local bodies' polls in the province and did not turned up to participate in the proceedings of the house. The alliance of four opposition parliamentary parties including JUI-F, ANP, PPP and PML-N has announced boycott of budget session against alleged rigging, mismanagement and non-utilisation of development funds in the province.
The house was scheduled to start debate on the budget, but opposition parties remained stick to their stand and did not turned over to the house and the house has to conclude budget in a single day. The legislators of QWP, with the PTI govt is re-negotiating power sharing formula turned over to the house to participate in the proceedings.
The house met with Speaker, Asad Qaiser in the chair concluded debate on the provincial budget amid the boycott of four opposition parliamentary parties of the session. In the absence of the opposition parties, Bakht Bedar of QWP opened debate followed by other members of the same political parties. However, the absence of the opposition was somehow filled by a treasury member, Special Assistant to CM on Commerce and Industries.
After the recitation from Holy Qur'an the Speaker announced giving 20- minute to parliamentary leaders and 10 minutes for ordinary MPAs and focusing on only budget and avoiding to raise unnecessary point. Opening debate on budget, the QWP legislator said that the claims of PTI govt regarding introduction of uniform education system and bringing students, teachers' ratio to 40:1 have proved as bundle of lie and even the children of the members of the house are also getting education in private institutions.
Similarly, he said that since the establishment of Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) no other big health facility has been constructed in the metropolis while situation of Rural Health Centres (RHCs) and Basic Health Units (BHUs) is also miserable.
Participating in the debate, Sikandar Hayat Sherpao, parliamentary leader of QWP said that the provincial govt has once again repeated the mistakes pinpointed during debate on the budget of current financial year. He termed it deficit budget, saying the govt has reflected a huge chunk of Rs 51 billion in head of arrears in head of net hydel profit and increase in annual NHP receipt from Rs 6 billion to Rs 17 billion, which could be received by the province.
Similarly, he said that an amount of Rs 2 billion has been reflected in head of incentive on Surplus Cash Balance, which would be paid on the basis of good performance at the end of the financial year while another amount of Rs 15 billion is shown in head of recoveries of investment of Hydel Development Fund, which reaches the deficit to Rs 79 billion. He said another amount of Rs 1.4 billion is reflected in head of financing from past saving that climbs the deficit tally to Rs 92 billion, which is 20 percent of the total annual budget.
He appreciated the establishment of Endowment Fund for the families of terrorism affected persons and called for its speedy disbursement. However, he said that instead of witnessing positive change, situation in health and education sectors had deteriorated in the province. Sherpao also criticised the federal govt for delay in the announcement of National Finance Commission (NFC) Award. He suggested that beside, population other factors should also be included in distribution of resources. He particularly suggested the inclusion of energy resource production, in which the province is self-sufficient to benefit the province.
In response to the criticism of Sherpao, Provincial Minister for Finance, Muzaffar Said, Minister for Local Government, Inayatullah Khan and Minister for Public Health Engineering (PHE) and Labour, Shah Farman defended the budget and pro-poor and welfare oriented.
All was going smoothly, but treasury member Abdul Monim Khan criticised for ignoring district Shangla and said that the budget is only four districts centric and all resources are diverted to them. He said that despite tall claims no fund was provided for the reconstruction of 75 schools destroyed in floods. In concluding remarks, Minister for Finance, Muzaffar said that provision of relief to poor and labourer classes have been given due consideration in the budget. He assured that proposals regarding introduction of unified education system and bringing improvement in public sector hospitals will be considered.
He said that no new tax has been levied in the budget and in case of any new tax, the members should pinpoint it. He said that minor changes in the taxes will help to earn revenue of Rs 270 million for the province. The speaker concluded the session and said that from Friday, the house will start debate on cut motions.