Budget full of contradictions: FPCCI

Govt promises another hard year for businesses and the poor.

ISLAMABAD:

Chairman Coordination FPCCI Raza Khan, in a statement issued on Sunday said the budget is full of contradictions and based on unrealistic assumptions that will not help the country, the economy or the masses in any way.

“Desired targets cannot be achieved in the absence of any positive steps to mobilise resources,” he said adding that the budget is a gift for the elite enjoying unjustified exemptions. It promises another difficult year, Khan said, in the statement.

He said that the growth rate has fallen to 2.4 per cent, per capita income is stagnant, fiscal deficit is at 6 per cent, investments have dried up, external capital flow has stopped, inflation stands at 14 per cent, borrowings have crossed all limits while savings are declining.

The issues of energy shortages, insecurity, instability, bankrupt public sector enterprises and struggle among political parties will continue to drag the economy down.

He said that the target to reduce the budget deficit to four per cent is a  pipe dream as steps to make it a reality were deliberately avoided by economic managers.

The government will continue to push a monetary policy that chokes the productive sectors, it will be printing more currency without considering the impact on poor masses, he said.

Raza Khan said that some steps have been taken to improve banking services but nothing has been done to safeguard the rights of depositors who are getting negative returns since long.

The pace of economic reforms has not only irked the IMF to a level where it has stopped disbursement but it amounts to punishing honest tax payers and to please the nobility, he said.

The government will be unable to achieve any economic target set for the next year helping us to retain the honour of one of the slowest growing countries, he said. PR

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2011.