MQM to oppose federal budget in assembly
KARACHI - Muttahida Quami Movement’s (MQM) Farooq Sattar rejecting the federal budget for the fiscal year 2015-16 has said that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government announced a traditional budget ignoring priorities of the poor. He said that MQM has decided to oppose the budget in assembly.
He expressed these views addressing a press conference at Khursheed Begum Secretariat here on Sunday. MQM leaders including Rasheed Godial, Nasreen Jalil, Khushbakht Shujat and other were also present on the occasion.
Speaking to the media men, Farooq Sattar said that the same budget has been presented for seventy years while such budget protects the stakes of the two per cent privileged class only. He demanded the government to stop the tradition of protecting the privileged class as such practice could not put the country on the path of prosperity and development. He said that Karachi that earns 70 per cent of total revenue of the federal budget has been given only Rs16 billions while increase in sales tax on electricity, gas and petrol will definitely cause inflation hike. He said that the federal budget is anti-people and MQM will prove it adding that the government has failed to achieve budget targets. Sattar said MQM has decided to oppose the budget during the discussion in parliament on Monday.
Education and health allocation draws mixed reaction
“PML-N government claims 14% increase in the budget for education sector in comparison with previous year budget 2014-15. The claim of 14% increase is nothing but manipulation of figures, the government just wants confuse the public.
This was said by Aizaz Asif, senior member of Alif-Ailan, while talking to The Nation. He said that the actual increase is around 4%. He said that this 4% is based on this year's allocation of 97.88 billion, and the 2014-15 ‘Revised Expenditure’ of 94.076 billion. Aizaz further said, “Despite, mentioning education in the top-most priorities of government, PML-N government has not shown any seriousness towards their promises, as PML-N has mentioned 4e’s in their manifesto - education, energy, economy, extremism; which were the top-most priorities of the party.”
He said that the government has just shown interest in Metro bus, laptops and various other schemes which must be dealt on secondary basis.”
Salman Naveed, another member from Alif-Ailan, who is particularly analyzing the budget allocation for the education sector, told The Nation that in the budget speech, it was stated that the Federal Government shall raise its allocations to 0.8% of the GDP (or approximately 200 billion per year) in the next two budgets. This means that more than 50 billion increase shall have to be made each year for the next two budgets.”
“Looking at the increase amount this year, it seems unlikely that the Federal Government is interested in achieving its goal,” said Salman.
Asgher Ali, Staff economist from Applied Economics Research Centre (AERC), University of Karachi, told The Nation that although the government has been claiming its importance towards education sector and that education budget is increased in reality its different.
He said that government’s challenge to improve the educational sector through allocated budget is just a wordy discussion, as they failed to achieve millennium development goal and many other promises.
“Government is not only liable to allocate budget, but also to monitor its utilization and sub division for budget must be focused keenly” Asgher told The Nation.
While talking to The Nation, Dr Wasiq, senior official of Pakistan Medical association (PMA), said that health has never been the priority of the government; allocation of budget for health sector is just a formality for the government.
“Despite being an important sector, health sector has always been deprived from governmental attentions,” he added
“Since 18th amendments, health sector has now become the responsibility of the Provincial governments; 20.88 billion is just allocated for their routine schemes,” he added
Another senior member from PMA, Dr Qaiser Sajjad told The Natoin, allocating 20.88 billion for health sector is not enough; the real thing is sub division and proper utilisation of the allotted amount.
“Government must use its funds in preventive side rather than curative side,” Dr Qaiser added
“Government tries to use funds to give a better cure to victims of any disease, if government will focus on prevention of disease, it will be more beneficial for all,” he said.