'Broken economy': opposition disputes Dar's claim

Opposition members in the National Assembly Saturday contested Finance Minister Ishaq Dar's claim of inheriting broken economy, saying that the country's economic health was not as poor as is being stated by the minister. Amir Munawar Talpur of former ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) said the Finance Minister has been misstating the facts about the economy because it was much better in 2013 compared to what was inherited by PPP in 2008.
Shazia Marri said the government has failed to take measures in the budget to tax all those having sufficient assets and pursuing a flawed logic to bring the non-filers into the tax net through withholding tax. She said present tax system is completely based on injustice and regressive taxation system. Shazia said the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) needs to improve tax collection but not at the cost of provinces and strongly suggested that Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC) should be transferred to provinces as per Article 61 of the Constitution. She said the collection of GIDC which was meant for infrastructure projects, which was previously under the head of non-tax revenue has been put under tax revenue. Shazia Marri further stated that the budget for the next fiscal year can be further improved and maintained that in next fiscal year development budget sufficient allocations have been made for Punjab-specific projects while block allocation of Rs 8 billion has been earmarked for other provinces, which always remains unutilised. The PPP leader added that instead of block allocation for the provinces, these funds should have been allocated against the projects.
The PPP parliamentarian said the supplementary demands for grants for the current fiscal year presented to the Parliament for approval are contrary to Finance Minister's last fiscal year budget speech that unnecessary expenditure would be reduced. She said that budgeted Rs 6 million for Prime Minister House physical assets has increased to Rs 41 million, showing a 681 percent increase. Similarly, a significant amount has been utilised on advertisements for Prime Minister's Youth Schemes. Shazia Marri said people are now sick of politicians' statements due to such contradictions.