This is my budget,I have made it: Shaukat Tarin

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ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin on Monday took the floor of the National Assembly during the middle of the general discussion on the federal budget 2021-22 and castigated the opposition members for constantly calling the document “fake and a pack of lies”.

“Shaukat Tarin, the son of Jamshed Ahmed Tarin, never tells a lie. They (the opposition members) say this budget is a lie. This is my budget. I have made it. So keep this thing aside,” declared a visibly vexed finance minister while forcefully defending the budget which he had presented before the house on June 11.

Like other ministers belonging to Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), Mr Tarin the fourth finance minister during the three-year PTI rule — then started lamenting the previous governments for allegedly ruining the country’s economy and praised Prime Minister Imran Khan for his efforts to revive it despite facing the Covid-19 pandemic.

The finance minister told the house that there was 11 per cent price-hike and 13pc food inflation in the country, and not 25pc as claimed by the opposition.

“The food inflation is because you have now become a net importer of food. You don’t have wheat. You don’t have sugar. I was surprised when during a meeting of the Price Control Committee I came to know that we are importing 70pc pulses, which is a staple food,” said the minister, adding that the international food prices were presently at the highest level in the last 10 years.

“What the previous government did for the agriculture sector in the last eight to 10 years?” asked Mr Tarin, who had previously served at the same position during the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government.

Mr Tarin admitted that the PTI government had to increase discount rate and tariffs and devalue the currency on the suggestion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but said it was due to bad policies of previous governments that they had to approach the IMF. He said they had to approach the IMF because the country was required to pay back $28 billion to $30bn that had been accumulated due to the $20bn current account deficit and short-term loans that had been taken by the previous PML-N government.

Mr Tarin said they had presented a “constructive budget” in which for the first time the focus was on the uplift of the poor people.

He praised the prime minister for focusing on housing and construction industry. He said for the first time the present government had improved foreclosure laws. He said without the mortgage policy, no country could make progress and he gave the examples of India, Thailand and Malaysia in this regard. He asked the opposition to at least give some credit to Prime Minister Imran Khan for his pro-poor policies. He said besides focusing on agriculture, the government would now also focus on industry, power and housing sectors.

Earlier, taking part in the debate, federal Minister for Economic Affairs Omar Ayub Khan said the Cabinet Committee on Energy during the PML-N government time abolished renewable energy projects which could produce 4,000MW electricity as they wanted to bring LNG to the country. The PTI government, he said, had revived all these projects.

He said in 2013 the capacity payment was Rs85bn which increased to Rs468bn in 2018. He said by renegotiating with power companies, the country would save Rs4,000bn in the next 15 years. He said during the PML-N government a number of officials of the Ministry of Power resigned or they were sacked when they objected to the projects. He said the government had also renegotiated with Qatar which would save $3.5bn.

He further said the previous rulers had planted landmines for the next government by deteriorating all institutions and collapsing the national economy.

PPP’s Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said if economic indicators had improved then why there was price-hike and food inflation in the country. He said the government resorted to use abusive language and creating rumpus in the house when they had nothing to deliver. He said three years of Pakistani nation had been wasted.

Prime Minister Imran Khan used to say that the people would voluntarily pay the taxes as they had trust in him and considered him an honest person then why the FBR being given the powers to arrest the people. Please take back this clause from the budget. The present government, he said, was doing everything under dictation from IMF and FATF.

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