Outrageous!

It is downright outrageous, insensitive and inappropriate. Adviser to the Prime Minister on Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan presented a bill on Friday in the Senate seeking extending federal lawmakers’ free air travel privilege to their family members. Every parliamentarian is issued 25 business class air tickets annually for free travel within the country. The bill moved by the PM’s adviser will not add to the burden on the exchequer though, the move seeking extension of the facility to family members of the parliamentarians is indeed shocking as it comes close on the heels of 9,350 employees of the Pakistan Steel Mills having been rendered jobless, and the coronavirus pandemic further weakening an already struggling economy.

Even before the onset of the pandemic, the economy was kept going with the help of an IMF bailout package and injection of funds from friendly countries. The federal government has had to spend an enormous sum of $8 billion to help those affected by the lockdown engendered by the pandemic. Besides, the economic slowdown has further dented the state coffers because of reduced tax collection. There are reports that employees of the federal government would get little or no raise in the new budget. The budget will likely disappoint pensioners too. The Punjab government has already announced that it will not be giving a raise to its employees. The EOBI (Employees Old-age Benefit Institution) pensioners have been denied an increase of Rs2,000 a month which they had been promised from January this year.

This is a time when not only the government in Pakistan but most governments in the world are faced with the dilemma of how to meet increasing expenditure with dwindling revenues. People with limited incomes are confronted with growing uncertainty as to their jobs and other sources of livelihood. However, it’s quite another matter with anokha ladla khelan ko mangay chand!

 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 8^th, 2020.

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