KARACHI: Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Altaf Shakoor while commenting on the federal budget said honestly speaking this is the budget of a country that is completely entangled in the debt trap: this is the budget of the lenders, by the lenders, for the lenders.

He said both the experts and laymen agree that this budget is the budget of an economically enslaved nation: it would bring no change in the life of the common man, but only hike further the already alarming poverty and hunger.

He said it is a bitter truth that we are no more a sovereign country at least financially, and its proof that our budget is prepared as per the dictation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and presented by a Finance Minister who himself was brought here from abroad.

He said traditionally this budget has also taken the care of the vested interests of the elite class at the cost of poor masses. It is not the budget of economic development but a budget of down slide and disaster.

He said this is the budget of a country that is completely entangled in the debt trap. He said the budget is of the lenders, by the lenders and for the lenders.

He said lavish subsidies are given to the economic 'white elephants'. Even a subsidy of more than a billion of rupees is given to the Karachi Electric (KE) that is a private entity already sucking the blood of the poor people. There is no subsidy on wheat or other food items.

He said that more than half of our budget would go into the deep pockets of our lenders. Even the government has to borrow Rs9000 billion more just to bridge the deficit gap, which means the deadly debt trap would be further tightened around the neck of this enslaved nation.

Altaf Shakoor said that only the government servants could find some relief but what would happen to the millions of workers and employees of the private sector, Haris and labourers. For them this budget means more inflation and more poverty.

He said we need a budget that focuses on creating job opportunities, increasing food production and promoting local industry and all this is simply missing in our budget.

He said like the whole nation, PDP also rejects this anti-people and pro-IMF budget and demands its complete overhauling to make the interests of our own people supreme instead of just appeasing our lenders.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024