ISLAMABAD: PML-N President and Opposition Leader in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif has lambasted the mini-budget in which over Rs360 billions new taxes have been imposed on the people of Pakistan that are already suffering due to the PTI government’s economic terrorism.
Reacting to the mini-budget, Shehbaz said that he had already warned the people that the budget 2021-22 presented by this government was a fraud while the really hammer would drop on the nation through mini-budgets.
He said the most vulnerable sections of the society had been hit the hardest with this disastrous mini-budget.
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He reminded that the PTI government promised not to impose any new tax or mini-budgets.
Shehbaz pointed out that no single measure of relief for poverty-stricken Pakistanis in this mini-budget had been taken. Essential commodities and food items were brutally taxed, he lamented.
In addition, mobile phones have been slapped with an advance income tax 10-15 per cent, he said, adding that out of these Rs360 billion of new taxes Rs353 would be collected from sales tax while Rs7 billion would be from income tax whereas there are certain other items as well, so the total tax is more than Rs360 billion.
“A whopping 17 per cent of taxes have been imposed on infant formula milk, dry milk, flavored milk, any type of red chillies, yogurt, bread, buns, laptops, personal computers, ghee and cooking oil, oil seeds, greenhouse farming, drip agriculture, medicines, ingredients of pharmaceutical products, various machinery, gold and silver,” he revealed.
He reminded that how the PML-N government ensured that these essential commodities would not become expensive. The PML-N government gave free laptops to encourage advancement of learning in the IT sector to produce more professionals while PTI had even targeted that by now imposing tax on computers and laptops.
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Taxing of oil and ghee would create a new crisis, he predicted. Taxing agriculture and greenhouse farming would seriously dent the farm output of the country and impact the environment adversely, he lashed out, adding that the increase in the cost of medicines and key pharmaceutical materials would make the people’s life more miserable.
The PML-N president also strongly criticized the State Bank Amendment Bill. He said that the PML-N was not against State Bank’s Independence but the manner in which this government had proposed this freedom had never been seen or heard of in any country in the world.
He said that as a regulator it should be Independent, but it was imperative that finance ministry and the state bank should share the burden of decision-making through mutual consultation but this act puts State Bank above and beyond Pakistan’s control and it would only be answerable to the IMF.
Shehbaz said that approval of this mini-budget would be like signing on a death-notice for Pakistan’s economy and its people.
