KARACHI: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi today (Sunday) has strongly criticized PTI-led federal government, saying that decision-makers in Islamabad are fudging budget numbers and “befooling the people”.
Addressing a press conference in Karachi, the former Prime Minister has claimed that new taxes worth Rs383 billion had been imposed in the new budget. “Of them, indirect taxes amount to Rs265bn, which clearly indicates the poor will have to bear them,” he added.
“The budget is based on lies. It is a fake budget and the government will gut the people to complete its targets,” he said, adding that this was the country’s first government that is lying so brazenly and has no shame in doing so.
The PML-N leader said that the government claims revenues of Rs1,150bn, but has not specified the source of this income. “In its last three years, the government couldn’t even increase its net income by 20 percent and now they claim they will boost the same by 24pc in the new fiscal year,” he added.
Speaking of LNG plants, he said that the government claims they have contributed to losses but the State Bank report states that they were fruitful. He lamented how the people were purchasing wheat flour at Rs35 per kilogramme in 2018, which had now shot up to Rs80-85 per kg.
Abbasi said 20m people had fallen below the poverty line in the three years of the government, adding that the current rulers seemed to have “no strategy” to bring down inflated power, gas, and water bills.
He said with taxes on sugar, the price of the commodity will rise further and warned of the prices of milk and dairy products also witnessing an increase. “All this is happening because the finance minister wishes to complete his target,” he asserted.
He questioned why there was no mechanism outlined in the budget for reducing inflation. Abbasi said that the real beneficiaries of the budget are the construction mafia. “The construction industry is the one where there will be no questions asked,” he added.
“This budget is simply an ‘ATM’ budget, which will fund their ‘ATMs’,” he said, referring to the party’s wealthy supporters. “These are the very same ‘ATMs’ that steal from the pharmaceutical sectors and rob the sugar sector,” he concluded.
