Nafisa Shah terms federal budget as election budget

Abdullah Jan

Islamabad: National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue member and an ally of the government Dr Nafisa Shah on Friday termed the federal budget as election budget.

“This is an unrealistic budget for two months. What kind of budget has been given,” Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) lawmaker Dr Nafisa Shah wondered.

She said Pakistan’s financial reserves were only one month’s worth of imports. They were told that difficult decisions would be made in the budget, but no difficult decisions had been made, she said.

“An economic storm is upon us right now. The IMF is putting pressure on us, after a month the economy will be in more trouble,” she said.

Qaisar Ahmad Sheikh said despite his being the Chairman of the Standing Committee, he had not been given any briefing.

He said banks abused business people and no action was taken against them. Containers were stalled and banks were charging their own dollar rate, the chairman standing committee said.

580 rich people were given 3 billion dollars at 2.5% interest rate, which did not increase the rate of economic growth, he said.

Qaiser Sheikh said the machinery was to be imported which was not done and loans were imposed on houses.

Small businesses should be given loans which increased economic growth, he said alleging that there was a corruption of Rs4,000 billion, which he had informed several times.

“I know where this corruption is happening, I am ready to give evidence. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has confirmed my words, the chairman committee said.