Qayyum terms budget pro poor, balanced

ISLAMABAD: Senator Lt General (Retd) Abdul Qayyum Wednesday termed the recently announced federal budget as balanced and pro poor and said the government had added over 12,230 MW power in the national grid in just last five years as compared to 15,000 MW in last 60 years.

Taking part in the budget debate, he said the PML-N government had completed various energy projects including Neelam-Jhelum, LNG based power projects, Coal Fired Power Plants, and Nuclear and Renewable Energy Projects besides enhancing Tarbela Power Station.

He said several other such projects were also in the completion phase.

He said the PML-N had completed vital projects in during last five years including Gwadar port, Islamabad International Airport, motorways, highways, controlled militancy, increased GDP, remittances and Foreign Direct Investment while Stock Exchange Index had also registered significant increase.

He stressed to focus on providing more facilities to technical education as prosperous nations achieve their goals only due to promoting technical education.

He stressed on constructing dozens of dams on mighty river Indus besides constructing Kalabagh dam for the production of cheap electricity.

He urged the government to enhance pension from 10 percent as old pensioners were the most sufferers and deserve more to fight inflation.

Commenting on higher level of foreign debt, he said imports usually increase when development projects like energy and connectivity were underway.

He said the PPP government had raised external debt from Rs 600 billion to Rs 13,000 billion in their five years tenure, which was more than 100 percent increase but did not add even one MW of electricity, made no motorway, airport or sea port.

There are very few countries in the world which have surplus budgets. Rest of all including the USA, China and Japan - the strongest world's economies - have deficit budgets and are all under debt also.

Loan taking, therefore, was a healthy sign for economies, provided loans were utilised for productive and developmental projects.