Parties urged to develop consensus on economic roadmap

While acknowledging challenges on the external account due to widening current account deficit, Minister of State for Finance Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan called upon all the political parties to develop consensus on economic roadmap to put the country on path to growth. Addressing a roundtable conference on Charter of Economy, arranged by the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industries in coordination with Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SPDI) and Center for International Private Enterprises (CIPE) Monday, the minister said all political parties should develop a consensus on economic roadmap to put the country on path to strong economy.
Afzal said that financing of current account deficit was a major problem for the government and an amnesty scheme was under consideration to bring the foreign currency and assets of Pakistanis back from abroad. The Minister also complained that the people were not ready to pay taxes but the government has been taking every possible measure to bring the non-filer into tax net as without tax collection, no welfare and development activity can be undertaken. He also spoke about untapped potential in various sectors particularly the real-estate which is paying very nominal taxes against billions of transactions.
Afzal said that phase-I of CPEC of early harvest projects was heading towards successful completion and claimed that there was complete transparency in the CPEC projects. He stated that ICCI initiative for organizing public-private dialogue on charter of economy was very positive to bring the public and private sector on one platform and such dialogues should be held on regular basis to develop consensus on economic policies.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Asad Umar came down hard on the government for increasing the country's debt to unsustainable level and stated that total external debt and liabilities of Pakistan were around $61 billion in first 60 years, showing average annual increase of $1 billion while the present government has borrowed over $6 billion in the current fiscal year. He stated that the government was taking one stance on the issue of charter of the economy for public consumption but a completely different approach with political parties.
Umar cited the example of ex-finance minister Ishaq Dar who used to invite political parties for charter of the economy via television but had always taken a stance that Standing Committees of both National Assembly and Senate were appropriate forums with all mainstream political parties presence to achieve consensus on economy. Dar hardly ever given any important to the Parliamentary committees and rarely attended the meetings so the 'charter of economy' was used for political point scoring only.