ISLAMABAD: Senate on Thursday adopted a total of 244 recommendations moved by its finance panel— 27 related to the Finance Bill 2022 and 217 regarding Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) – whereas Finance Minister Miftah Ismail skipped the important session, in what appeared to be a huge embarrassment for Chairman Senate Sadiq Sanjrani who wanted the minister to brief the upper house of Parliament on the proposed federal budget.
Contrary to expectations, the finance minister did not show up at the Senate sitting to wind up debate on the proposed federal budget. Instead, Finance and Revenue State Minister Aisha Ghaus Pasha delivered the winding up speech.
Although, the finance minister attended the proceedings of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs to discuss the budget recommendations with the panel members but he did not attend the Senate budget session despite that chairman Senate and several other senators had stressed on different occasions that Ismail should appear in the Senate to brief the house on proposed new federal budget.
In Thursday’s sitting, Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs Saleem Mandviwalla presented the committee’s report on the recommendations on the Finance Bill 2022 containing the Annual Budget Statement that were adopted by the house.
Some of the key recommendations include abolition of capital gain tax (CGT) on immovable property, reduction of advance income tax to eight per cent on telecom services, collection of sales tax from all the sales points with the exception of small retailers, grant of exemption from Federal Excise Duty (FED) to the newly merged districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from ex-FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas), increase in FED on natural gas from 10 per cent per Metric Million British Thermal Unit (MMBTU) to 20 per cent MMBTU, withdrawal of sales tax on raw material of pharmaceutical products and a host of other recommendations made by the Senate to National Assembly.
Finance bill 2022: Fundamental policy for IPPs changed, points out tax expert
On June 10, amidst strong protest by the opposition for “anti-poor” federal budget, the finance minister laid a copy of the Finance Bill 2022 in the upper house of the Parliament, seeking the recommendations of the senators on the proposed legislative draft. The upper house of the Parliament can hold extensive debate on the finance bill and devise recommendations accordingly but it has practically no role in budgetary legislation since it is completely up to NA to either completely or partially accept these recommendations, or hand them an outright rejection.
Article 73, which deals with parliamentary business with respect to money bills reads, “Notwithstanding anything contained in Article 70, a money bill shall originate in the National Assembly: Provided that simultaneously when a money bill, including the finance bill containing the annual budget statement, is presented in the National Assembly, a copy thereof shall be transmitted to the Senate which may, within fourteen days, make recommendations thereon to the National Assembly.”
Earlier, speaking on the floor of the house, Thursday, former finance minister Shaukat Tarin said International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked this federal government to impose additional taxes of 440 billion rupees. “That would be the real budget that is yet to come. What has been debated in the Senate in the name of budget is just a formality. The real budget will be unveiled in the National Assembly,” he maintained.
Tarin said that the former government of PTI effectively tackled the issue of load shedding in the country and ended power outages due to its effective planning and implementation.
He blamed the “sheer incompetence” of the incumbent federal government for unprecedented load shedding across the country.
Meanwhile, winding up the debate in Senate on proposed federal budget for upcoming fiscal year 2022-23, finance and revenue state minister said, the government will ensure the implementation of IMF agreement.
The government has announced a substantial cut in its expenditure, she said.
The state minister said efforts are being made to reduce the budget deficit and “we should all join hands to steer the country out of the current difficult situation.”
She said subsidy is being given on five essential items, sugar, ghee, wheat, flour, and pulses, in order to provide relief to the poor.
Pasha assured the house that the federal government and the lower house of the Parliament would give due consideration to Senate’s recommendations on Finance Bill 2022. The Senate session has been prorogued.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
Comments
Comments are closed.