Pakistan opposition rejects budget 2024-2025, disputes key figures

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s opposition lawmakers on Wednesday rejected the federal budget for the year 2024-25, alleging that the government had not fulfilled its constitutional requirements of providing budget documents for them to review and disputing key figures provided by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb. 
The finance minister unveiled the much-awaited Rs18.877 trillion ($67.76 billion) federal budget for FY 2024-25 that set an ambitious revenue collection target of Rs13 trillion ($46.66 billion). The budget is expected to play a pivotal role in Pakistan’s negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to unlock yet another loan program. 
Opposition lawmakers from the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), backed by independent candidates affiliated with jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, protested during Aurangzeb’s speech. 
As they shouted slogans, the SIC lawmakers carried placards with “Release Imran Khan” written all over them. Throughout most of the finance minister’s speech, opposition lawmakers gathered in front of the Speaker’s dais and kept shouting anti-government slogans.
“A fake budget has been presented today, we reject it completely,” Omar Ayub Khan, the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, told reporters after the budget session.
“This is a joke with the nation and Pakistan.”
He described the budget as “illegal and unconstitutional,” saying the government had not provided budget documents for the opposition lawmakers’ perusal. He said it was possible the government would change important figures in the document by the next National Assembly session to be held on June 20.
“I want to categorically say here that today for the first time in the parliament, glaring constitutional violation has taken place during the budget,” he said. 
He disputed the government’s figures that said the gross domestic product (GDP) had grown by 2.38 percent, the agriculture sector by 6.25 percent, and the industrial and services sectors had each grown by 2.1 percent in the outgoing fiscal year.
“The budget they are presenting, this is not the real growth rate,” he alleged. 
Meanwhile, Aurangzeb credited the government’s policies for stabilizing the country’s economy. He noted that Pakistan’s reserves were no longer in a precarious situation and that the country’s economic indicators were improving. 
“Mr. Speaker, I think that despite political and economic challenges, our progress on the economic front in the past one year has been impressive,” the finance minister had said in his budget speech.

 However, SIC lawmaker Shandana Gulzar Khan said the public should have derived the maximum benefit from the government’s budget. Instead, she said they would have to pay heavy taxes. 
“You want to fix this country, you give this country to the people,” Gulzar told Arab News.
“Those who are paying taxes, you ensure that they get the maximum share of the budget, that they are able to send their children to school, that they are able to eat three times a day and they have access to a health card,” she added.