FROM A RINGSIDE SEAT

The debate on the Federal Budget opened simultaneously in the National Assembly and Senate on Tuesday morning, with opposition leaders making expectedly high-pitched speeches. But quite early in the day it lost its lustre and became lifeless, as successive speakers, betraying their waning interest in this prosaic exercise resorted to mere point scoring.
Cliches abounded the presentations, and while the opposition opposed everything and proposed nothing, the treasury benches offered nothing but plaudit and that too rather crudely worded. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz kept running between the two chambers tasting the sweet and sour of the will of the nation as expressed by its representatives.
There was, however, one exception: braced with facts and figures Ishaq Dar spoke with great eloquence as he assaulted the very rationale supporting the federal budget.
His attack was two-pronged: First, he took out the broad presumptions that the budget makers relied on and then he grappled with the specifics, demolishing Shaukat Aziz's soul-less case brick by brick.
Lamenting the failure of the government in clinching a national consensus on the National Finance Award, he said clearly the disharmony between the centre and the provinces has widened.
Dar also reminded the Senate that the budget has moved away from the concept of documentation introduced by the Nawaz Sharif government in 1999 budget. He pleaded for granting autonomous status to the Bureau of Statistics so those figures in the budget documents acquire credibility, adding that the present budget is inflationary.
Ishaq Dar did not quarrel with the idea of changing the "base year" from 1980-81 to the present, but wished the move was transparent, and also people could know what would have been the per capita income and other such figures if the new base year was not introduced.
Ishaq Dar said the budget is "very good" for big business, big industry and feudal landlords, although the capital value tax on stocks has seriously damaged the confidence-building among investors. And how one would call it pro-poor when it focussed on only about a million while poverty tends to deepen in many many millions.
Then he came to the specifics: How authentic is the budget figure of GDP rate, one would know only if the minister tells as to what would have been the GDP rate if the base year were not shifted. The prosperity has not spread because higher GDP rate is because of increase in large-scale manufacturing, including cars and air-conditioners, which of course are not what the poor buy.
Dar said agriculture growth is down to 2.6 percent mainly because of mismanagement of water and warned that wheat crop estimates are too optimistic to be true. Actual figure of wheat output when available may put the agriculture growth rate at zero or minus zero. He accused the government of submitting to the pressure of IFIs for withdrawing the agriculture subsidies, asserting "they want us to withdraw all subsidies so that we lose our strategic autarky in food".
He urged the government to allow import of second hand agricultural machinery as well as duty of 35 to 100 horsepower tractors too should be abolished.
Ishaq Dar disputed the per capital income figure of $652 and said it should be corrected. He also questioned as to why the budget is silent on distribution of income.
Then he asked how poverty was reduced when population has increased, more people have gone under the poverty line and agriculture, the main employer, has registered decline and unemployment is rampant. Nadra has put the figure of unemployed at 7.8 million among the 35 million, it issued the computerised ID cards.
Dar said there are two sets of figures, and the figures released by the State Bank are more reliable than those given in the Economic Survey.
The ex-finance minister blamed higher defence allocation over-run in the outgoing situation on the western border and said the defence expenditure be freezed at that.
He also opposed reduction in duty on imported cars, saying, "on the one hand, exemption of millions of rupees is being given to the rich man while the poor is only getting a reduction of 10 paisa per unit in his electricity bill."
In the National Assembly, Leader of Opposition Maulana Fazlur Rehman opened the budget debate. His emphasis being that without sovereign Parliament Pakistan will not be politically stable. He called for more time for debate on the budget, but the very next speaker, Sher Afgan Khan opposed his move saying terrorism is taking place across the world and Pakistan is no exception.
PML-N's Chaudhry Nisar Ali said that if foreign exchange reserves are high and if Pakistan's foreign debt has been rescheduled, it is all due to the U-turn Musharraf regime took following the 9/11 bombings and not the curtsey of the so-called sustained economic reforms. He rejected Shaukat Aziz's bye-bye to the IMF claim arguing how come you increased the petroleum prices for 130 times in four years and say we have nothing to do with the IMF.
Turning to the politics Nisar wanted "this drama-that Jamali is going, Jamali is not going-to end". Next speaker, Riaz Pirzada, from the treasury benches blasted the Ulema for what he called stoking the fires of hatred. All the leads following the 9/11 incident find their way to Pakistan, then why the world should not point fingers at us. "But we are worried about Iraq, where Saddam Hussain massacred 5,000 Muslims at the Roza of Hazrat Imam Hussain (RA) and not a single resolution condemning the incident was passed in Islamabad."
There were some light moments also. Rana Mehmudul Hasan from Sariki belt called the finance minister "The old hunter who has come with a net ... This is his fifth budget but the people's problems are the same, unresolved." He too detected some political turbulence rocking Jamali's boat: "Ghulam Baghtai Phirtai Hain Mushlaen Lay Kar/Maheal Per Tootnai Wali Kohi Quamat Hai". About the claims made in the budget he said: "Jhoot Bola Hai Tou Iss Per Qaim Raho Zafar/Adami Ko Sahib-e-Kirdar Hona Chaiuay".
However, outside the Parliament building things were looking less romantic. Concrete barriers have placed at the main entry gate, which also serves as one of the entry points for presidency. Speculation of in-house change remains rife, but there is a new dimension to this also. Come July and scenario would change even more dramatically, the cynics said.