Budget 2015 is anti-poor, anti-farmer: Zardari

Says present budget will also be tall on promises and short on delivery

ISLAMABAD: Former president Asif Ali Zardari has rejected the federal budget 2015 as “anti-poor, anti-farmer and anti-government servants” which fails to take even a small step in the direction of fair and equitable distribution of resources and opportunities.

In a statement issued Saturday the former President said that the third budget of the PML-N government is typically an accountants’ statement that reserves incentives for the rich but placates the poor with mere platitudes and prayers.

“The budget has failed to give a vision to address the structural weaknesses stemming from concentration of wealth and inequitable distribution of wealth and opportunities”.

Government servants, particularly the lower-paid ones will be more than disappointed, farmers will be frustrated and the working class dismayed at the insensitivity of the government towards their plight, he said.

The government should have set aside a part of the windfall gains of falling international oil prices for alleviating poverty and ameliorating the lot of peasants and workers.

He said that the failure in achieving economic targets last year only strengthens the widely held belief that the present budget will also be tall on promises and short on delivery and performance.

Spokesperson Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the former president also expressed deep concern that the government seemed to have reneged on its promise to implement the consensus decision of the May 28, All Parties Conference to build the western route of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor on priority basis.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2015.