A critical look at the 2010-11 budget

Next fiscal year’s budget is certainly not a people’s budget but one dictated to us by the IMF. It is not even constitutionally correct since it doesn’t implement the NFC Award or the 18th amendment. Instead of managing inflation it will end up increasing prices. The increase from last year’s Rs1.38 trillion in taxes to this year’s Rs1.667 trillion is going to be a burden on ordinary Pakistanis who pay their taxes as opposed to the elite. Subsidies are also to be slashed – Wapda’s from Rs147 billion to Rs84 billion and KESC’s from Rs32 billion to Rs3 billion. This means that people better get used to a massive rise in their electricity bills.

Let’s move to the famous austerity drive of the government. Had there been a true drive the budget of the prime minister secretariat would not have increased from Rs428 million last year to Rs484 million for 2010-11. Nor would the president’s have increased from Rs390 million to Rs427 million. The 10 per cent cut on the salaries of federal ministers is just an eyewash. And the president’s allowances were overspent by Rs10million last year. And the prime minister spent Rs25 million last year, both without the parliament’s approval.

In a year where the 18th amendment was signed we should have seen some reductions in the budgets of those federal ministries who are on the concurrent lists – since their operations will move in full to the provinces in the near future. Below is a list of those ministries that are asking for more funds this year. Clearly that is against the spirit of the 18th amendment. The culture division’s budget for 2010-11 is Rs104 million higher than for the outgoing year, sports has asked for Rs30 million more, youth affairs for Rs40 million more, tourism Rs25 million and population planning a whopping Rs516 million.

General Musharraf’s old NFC formula of 23.71 per cent for Sindh and 57.36 per cent for Punjab has been applied instead of the 55 per cent for Sindh based on revenue generation which was agreed to in the 7th NFC Award. And how many projects of the communications ministry are specific to Multan, versus the rest of the country? If one analyses the communications budget closely, one will find that eight projects for the Multan region are ongoing – at a cost of Rs8,510 million – and Rs2,889 have been set aside for three new projects for the district. This means that a quarter of the communications budget will be devoted to the district of the prime minister alone. I have nothing against Multan. It’s underdeveloped and should get a share but surely there are other cities which should be getting sizeable portions?

This is just a snapshot of a budget which is serving our elite versus our poor. Let’s hope the opposition blocks these anomalies in the budget session.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2010.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 09, 2010

The increase from last year’s Rs1.38 trillion in taxes to this year’s Rs1.667 trillion is going to be a burden on ordinary Pakistanis...