Shehbaz, Bilawal slam ‘mini-budget’
Opposition Leader Shehbaz Sharif and PPP's Bilawal Bhutto Zardari speaking to the media in Islamabad on November 17, 2021. SCREENGRAB
The top leaders of the two main opposition parties – PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif and PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari – on Thursday lashed out at the PTI-led government for imposing a “mini-budget” on the people.
Shehbaz, who is also the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, in statement lamented the imposition of Rs360 billions worth of new taxes on the people, who were “already being butchered by PTI government's economic terrorism”.
He added that he had warned the country that the budget 2021-22 presented by the PTI government was a fraud, while the “real hammer would be dropped on the nation through mini-budgets”.
“The most vulnerable sections of the society have been hit the hardest with this disastrous mini-budget.”
Shehbaz pointed out that there was not a single measure of relief for the poverty-stricken Pakistanis in the mini-budget.
“Essential commodities and food items have been brutally taxed. In addition to that, mobile phones have been slapped with an advance income tax of 10-15%,” he noted.
"A whopping 17% GST has been imposed on infant formula milk, dry milk, flavoured milk, any type of red chillies, yoghurt, bread, buns, laptops, personal computers, ghee and cooking oil, oil seeds, greenhouse farming, drip agriculture, medicines, ingredients of pharmaceutical products, various machinery, gold and silver.”
Read: Taxing time: A closer look at the finance bill
The PML-N president claimed that making infant milk, yogurt, bread, buns, and chillies more expensive would make life even harder for the people, who were already on the verge of starvation because of the PTI’s policies.
Shehbaz also criticised the State Bank (Amendment) Bill.
“According to this bill dictated by the IMF (International Monetary Fund], the State Bank is only responsible to control inflation and cannot fund the government no matter how grave or dire the situation might be even in the event of a natural disaster.”
Bilawal also rejected the mini-budget, saying that to receive $1 billion tranche from the IMF, Prime Minister Imran Khan had pushed the common man against the wall.
“We have been saying since day one that Imran Khan's deal with the IMF would bring the country to the brink of disaster,” he added.
The PPP chairman claimed that PM Imran had increased his “brutality” by increasing taxes on everything from bakery items to infant milk.
He added that PM Imran had proved that he was the enemy of the people by increasing the price of packaged milk and matches in the mini-budget.
Both Shehbaz and Bilawal were absent from the proceedings of the National Assembly at the time the finance minister tabled the supplementary finance bill or “mini-budget” earlier in the day.