Fiscal outlay: MQM proposes Rs4.5tr shadow budget

PPPP’s Senator Sherry Rehman says the budget ‘ignores Sindh’

ISLAMABAD/ KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) moved on Wednesday to propose a shadow budget, suggesting an outlay of Rs4.5 trillion and urging the federal finance minister to include local governments’ suggestions in an effort to make the upcoming budget ‘people-friendly’.

Party MNA and senior deputy convener Dr Farooq Sattar discussed the salient features of the shadow budget, prepared by MQM’s Economic and Finance Committee, and said: “Ishaq Dar should take suggestions from KMC, LMC and other local governments and include people at grassroots level.”



The event, attended by businessmen, diplomats and technocrats, was hosted by the party at Beach Luxury Hotel.

According to MQM’s estimates, the government’s budget outlay “will be around Rs4.8 trillion”.

Sattar said: “Our proposals call for decreased sales tax, lowering it to a single digit.”

MQM’s proposals also included raising minimum wages to Rs20,000 in addition to a 15 percent increase in pensions for government servants.

He said that education and health sectors should be given five percent each of GDP in both provincial and federal budgets.

Calling for exempting IT industry from taxes, he said: “Give opportunities to NED students. They can make drones. In fact they can design bio-metric systems, identifying all illegal people.”



He said that the budget should address climate change especially the possibility of a heatwave, and said that priority should be given to solving energy crisis instead of focusing on metro buses and trains.

Revival of circular railway project, first phase of K-IV (260 MGD additional water supply) and other developmental projects for Karachi were also suggested.

Referring to the CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor), Sattar termed it a selective program. “It excludes Sindh and Karachi. Integrate Karachi (into it). Build 300-kilometre-long corridor from Bismah in Baluchistan to Karachi. Only then will it (CPEC) become a national program,” he said.

Meanwhile, Vice-President of PPPP Senator Sherry Rehman questioned the distribution of funds in the forthcoming budget, saying that Sindh's share of development outlay proposed by the federal government defied the spirit of fiscal federalism.

Commenting on the budget document approved by the National Economic Council, Rehman said that the provincial allocations made in the document exhibit an alarming bias towards the electoral strongholds of the ruling party. “This is not a federal budget. It is a politically parochial budget. It ignores the needs of Pakistan's largest tax-paying and revenue generating province,” she said in a statement.

“It is a matter of public record that the Sindh Revenue Board surpassed Rs49 billion in tax collection this year, with the province performing highest in terms of sales tax collection. During the first half of the outgoing fiscal year, the Sindh government collected Rs28.45 billion in sales tax, registering a growth of 33 percent against the corresponding period of the previous year. Why then is its development outlay so small?” questioned the Senator.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 2^nd, 2016.