PTI says budget will enrich elite at the cost of masses in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday launched a scathing attack on the recently passed Federal Budget for 2025-26, denouncing it as a ‘banker’s blueprint’ crafted to enrich the elite at the expense of the masses.

Speaking at a presser, the opposition leader in National Assembly Omar Ayub, flanked by Asad Qaiser, Gohar Ali Khan, and other senior party leaders, condemned the budget as a ‘giveaway written by a banker, for his banker buddies’.

“This is not a people’s budget; it’s a banker’s business plan,” Ayub said. “The hybrid regime plans to borrow another Rs6,300 billion from local banks, allowing four or five bank owners to graduate from billionaires to trillionaires. Meanwhile, the nation sinks deeper into debt.”

Ayub accused the government of both fiscal cruelty and political repression, warning that the prices of essential commodities such as flour, sugar, and lentils would soar under the new fiscal measures. “They couldn’t even face the opposition in Parliament. Both the finance minister and the prime minister evaded accountability.”

Moreover, Ayub claimed that former MNA Ijaz Chaudhry was abducted in the dead of night, while former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi remain in jail as hostages of political vendetta. He said several senior PTI leaders including Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Omar Cheema, Hassaan Niazi, and Yasmin Rashid and others were imprisoned without bail.

However, Asad Qaiser accused the government of reducing Parliament to a rubber stamp.

MNA Sanaullah Mastikhel criticising the powerful energy lobbies, alleged that Independent Power Producers (IPPs) were “untouchable profiteers” who have plundered the nation for decades under successive governments. “These IPPs have become a cartel, bleeding the country dry through inflated capacity payments and ironclad contracts. They get paid whether they produce electricity or not while the average Pakistani is left in the dark, both literally and financially.”

Masti accused the government of shielding these corporate giants while the public suffers from rolling blackouts and sky-high electricity bills. “Every time the people tighten their belts, these energy barons loosen theirs. And now, with this budget, the same crooks are getting even more incentives. It is daylight robbery, institutionalised.”

He demanded an open audit of all IPP contracts and called for a complete overhaul of the power sector.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025