Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Monday said the government had no business being in business and the private sector should lead the country.

The finance minister passed these remarks while addressing the Senate session on Monday.

“Macroeconomic stability is basic hygiene for growth,” the finance minister said.

“The government will show fiscal discipline by increasing its revenues and cutting expenditures, which will lead to increased capacity to lend to the private sector.”

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During his speech, the finance minister further said the government had increased the IT sector budget “not to support the government but to support the ecosystem that could help our freelancers and other sectors, which can help grow exports”.

Regarding the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Aurangzeb said any transformation should be on the basis of People, Process, Technology (PPT) model.

“If our tax authority does not have integrity, then we have a problem,” he said, mentioning that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had taken an initiative four months ago with the people agenda.

He continued that bringing simplification in the process of the initiatives taken by the government was also crucial.

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“I have come from the private sector. I did a job for six years. If as a salaried class person whose tax is cut at source I have to get tax advice and consult accounting firms, something is very wrong [in the process of taxation],” Aurangzeb said.