Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan said on Wednesday that his party would oppose the mini-budget in the Senate but President Arif Alvi would not become a “hurdle” in its implementation.
Addressing supporters from his residence in Zaman Part via a video link, Imran said that the new budgetary measures would spur inflation, stressing that the hike in sales tax and energy tariff would increase the prices of every commodity.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar moved the Finance (Supplementary) Bill 2023 — dubbed as mini-budget — in the National Assembly and Senate in order to meet the conditions set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the revival of the $6.5 billion programme.
The government negotiated the IMF terms for the release of critical bailout funds, as the foreign exchange reserves plummeted to barely enough for three weeks of imports, while the inflation rising to the decades-high level of 27%.
Imran said that Dar met the president on Tuesday to get him to sign an ordinance to implement the new budgetary measures but Alvi declined to sign the ordinance and, instead, urged the government to take the matter to parliament.
“The PTI will strongly oppose the bill in the Senate, but the president will not create any hurdles in its implementation,” Imran said. However, he added that the current situation was just “a start” for which the “rulers and their handlers” were responsible.
To implement the IMF conditions, the government proposed in the bill a raise in the general sales tax from 17% 18% to generate additional revenue of Rs170 billion during the current fiscal year. The bill also raised taxes on luxury items, air travel and cigarettes.
Imran warned that the inflation in the country would increase further with the approval of the mini-budget. "Even if we accept what the IMF is saying, we will sink further into a quagmire... The current situation was only a start...” he added.
“I want to tell those people who are standing behind them that they [the government] have no planning. It is just like treating cancer with aspirin. Even if the dollars come from the IMF, our income is constantly decreasing and our debts are increasing,” he said.
The PTI chief reiterated his demand for early general elections in the country, saying that only that government which had the public mandate could take tough decisions to root out the cancer. He warned that any delay in the elections would aggravate the situation.
“These measures are not the solution to the country's economic woes. The only solution is fair and transparent elections and a government with people’s mandate can take difficult decisions and root out the cancer,” he added.
The former prime minister also spoke about his meeting with former army chief Gen (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa following his removal from the government through a no-confidence motion in April last year.
He said that the meeting between him, the president and Bajwa was held only on the matter of elections. “What I have learned from my time in the government that the tenure of an army chief should not be extended,” he said.
The PTI chief said that nominating Usman Buzdar as the Punjab chief minister after the 2018 general elections was a difficult decision because the party had many strong candidates. However, he revealed that Gen (retd) Bajwa wanted Aleem Khan in that post.
Referring to the registration of case against him, he said that the PTI was a big party and if he gave the call for strikes and protests, everything would stop, but instead he chose a peaceful way of ‘Jail Bharo Tehreek’ [courting arrests movement].
“The aim of this movement is actually to eliminate people's fear of jails and FIRs [first information reports]. The nation should prepare for the peaceful protest because they [the government] have no intention of holding elections in 90 days.”
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