Budget demand: MQM wants Rs15,000 as minimum wage

Farooq Sattar calls budget ‘traditional, says it will add to people’s problems.

KARACHI:

The Muttahida Quami Movement on Friday declared the budget 2013-14, presented by the government a ‘traditional one’ promising no betterment to the public.

Demanding minimum wage of Rs15,000 and a decrease in sales tax, MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar said salaries of labourers should be increased.

The MQM leader lashed out at the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, saying that when the party was in the opposition they had vowed to bring back the plundered wealth from abroad. But now, after the party was in the government they failed to draft any policy over it. Speaking at a press conference on Friday, the MQM leader said that the budget will add to the problems of the poor. He said that the entire nation was left in a state of shock after the budget was presented.

“No tax has been imposed on the feudal landlords, instead new taxes have been levied on salaried persons,” he said.

Sattar further stated that by introducing ‘withholding tax’ on traders, the government aimed to hurt them economically. He said that the PML-N budget was perhaps the first of its kind in the world which imposed a tax on education. MQM senator Mustafa Kamal has been included in the Rabita Committee.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 15^th, 2013.