Ostensibly, the Imran government had summoned another session of the National Assembly, since Wednesday of the last week, to seek approval for a massive package of new taxes for getting a tranche of $1bn from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The ultimate regulator of the global economy didn’t feel good about the budget that a banker-turned-politician, Shaukat Tarin, had prepared for the current fiscal year. It politely refused to buy the feel-good narrative that Mr Tarin had boastfully been promoting regarding the state of our economy.
Presenting the annual budget in June this year, he kept insisting that Pakistan’s stunning growth in multiple sectors had rudely defied the doomsayers. The government wouldn’t want to break the growth momentum by introducing more taxes and relentless increases in the rates of electricity and gas consumption.
Often, he also vowed to convey the loud and firm NO to do-more kind of suggestions by the IMF. Hardly three months after presenting the budget, however, he was forced to smell coffee.
The IMF also conveyed to him, pointblank, that Pakistan had already committed to enforce certain measures, presumably aimed at reforming and restructuring our economy by broadening and updating its tax network and the tools of revenue collection. To facilitate reaching there, the IMF also promised to provide $6 billion to Pakistan in the name of Extended Fund Facility (EFF) in various installments.
After getting the take-it-or-leave-it message from the IMF, Shaukat Tarin was finally forced to prepare Finance (Supplementary) Bill 2021. In popular parlance such a bill is called the “mini-budget,” the term, an incurably arrogant Tarin hates to own like the honest broker.
Whatever you may call it, Pakistan now needs to go for a net fiscal adjustment of around Rs550 billion during the remaining months of the current fiscal year. It would require a huge withdrawal of tax exemptions amounting to around Rs360 billion, plus 22 percent cut in funds committed for development schemes.
After many days of desperate tweaking of the budget-related figures, the government is now ready with the final draft of the mini-budget. Yet, it was not presented for the Federal Cabinet’s approval previous Tuesday.
Reliable sources claim that the government was feeling shy of presenting the already prepared mini-budget for approval by the National Assembly. The shocking results of local bodies’ polls, primarily in areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, considered invincible citadels of the ruling party since 2013, had seemingly forced the second thoughts.
Prime Minister Imran Khan and the huge brigade of his spin-doctors keep insisting that the ruling party suffered a rude shock in these polls due to selecting “wrong candidates.” But the second and third tier leaders of the same party, more attuned to the ground realities, candidly admit that the nonstop wave of inflation was the one and only cause of their stunning defeat.
The real or presumed ‘home base’ of the ruling party, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has yet to go for two more rounds of local bodies’ polls. Then the same is scheduled to happen in Punjab, the most populous province of Pakistan, somewhere in March/April next year.
You don’t need to be an acclaimed economist to imagine that massive withdrawal of tax exemptions through the mini-budget, coupled with perpetual increase in the prices of electricity, gas and petroleum products would unleash another unbearable wave of inflation in the country. It has all the potential of igniting mass scale agitation as well.
Fearing the possible blowback, many legislators currently sitting on the government benches could refuse to vote in favor of the mini-budget, which the opposition parties are vowing to reject by all means anyway. But the IMF had already announced to hold its Board meeting on Jan 12, 2022 to consider and possibly approve the release of $1billion tranche to Pakistan. The Imran government thus has to get the mini-budget approved by the National Assembly, at least two weeks prior to this meeting. But the government is yet not sure how to go about it.
Before formally presenting the mini-budget for approval by the National Assembly, the Imran government would want to ensure that all its legislators took their seats in full strength and slavishly say YES to new proposals without much ado.
So far, though, the ruling party legislators are behaving hard to get. On the first day of the current session Wednesday, the government couldn’t get members even for establishing the quorum. The House had to be adjourned until Friday. But even after a gap of one full day, the government failed to pull sufficient number to its benches when the house started its proceedings Friday morning. Even the front rows, reserved for ministers, looked ominously deserted.
Yet to furnish the charade of look-busy, the government decided to suspend the given agenda to discuss the recent mob lynching in Sialkot. The said lynching and eventual burning of a Sri Lankan manager of an export-focused outfit, for allegedly committing ‘blasphemy,’ had seriously dented Pakistan’s image.
But cutting across the political and ideological divide, an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis also felt genuinely ashamed and apologetic about it. And the victim’s family and country acknowledged the same with an amazingly large heart.
There was thus no need to recall this highly embarrassing and disturbing story by asking the National Assembly to discuss the same with hollow and near-hypocritical speeches.
Ahsan Iqbal of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) was totally justified to anxiously wonder as to why and how the world should consider us seriously perturbed about the tragic incident of Sialkot, when the interior minister was personally not present in the house to initiate discussion on the tragic incident by revealing the exact details of it. The law minister should have been there as well to explain how speedily we were heading to ensure appropriate punishment for the main culprits.
Then, an opposition backbencher asked for the headcount and members for establishing the quorum were again not present in the house. It had to be adjourned until Monday evening.
The government surely failed to convey the feeling of being sincerely upset about an incident that had deeply damaged our collective image. But this government has fast developed an embarrassingly thick skin by ceaselessly getting away with wanton handling of so many grave issues. It will surely not feel ashamed for its juvenile handling of a highly serious matter during the National Assembly proceedings of Friday as well.