PESHAWAR: The opposition in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Friday lashed out at the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government for presenting an anti-people and discriminatory budget for fiscal year 2018-19.<\/p>\n
Taking part in the debate, parliamentary leader of Awami National Party (ANP) Sardar Hussain Babak said the finance minister in his budget speech criticised the past governments instead of admitting the fact that the previous PTI government was the worst as it failed to increase provincial revenue even though it didn\u2019t face any natural calamity like the ANP did.<\/p>\n
He said the minister should know that the past governments had secured a raise in the share of the province from the federal divisible pool.<\/p>\n
The MPA from Buner alleged that PTI had been given power under an agreement to reduce the share of the provinces under the National Finance Commission (NFC) award and roll back the 18th constitutional amendment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe PTI talked about accountability of politicians, but would it bring former President retired General Pervez Musharraf to justice as he had abrogated the constitution,\u201d the ANP lawmaker asked.<\/p>\n
He said the previous setup had shown Rs2,400 billion projects under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), but the new budget has no mention of those projects. He added that no funds have been allocated for the newly merged tribal districts in the recent budget.<\/p>\n
He said the allocations for education, health, tourism and mines and mineral development were also nominal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was claimed that 10 new colleges would be constructed but just one lakh rupees were allocated in the budget. On the one hand only Rs15 million have been given to tourism and 30 million to mines and mineral development, one million each has been allocated for schools in all the 99 constituencies of the province while on the other Rs2 billion has been earmarked for a road in the constituency of a minister,\u201d Sardar Hussain Babak argued.<\/p>\n
He said it was discrimination that one billion rupees has been allocated for Swat, the home district of chief minister under the head of militancy-hit area but other districts of Malakand division including Buner, Lower Dir and Upper Dir were ignored.<\/p>\n
He also criticised the Bus Rapid Transit project in Peshawar and said besides causing misery for the people it damaged the historical highway leading to Afghanistan and Central Asia.<\/p>\n
Sardar Mohammad Yousaf, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) lawmaker from Mansehra, also termed the budget as discriminatory and said underdeveloped districts were totally ignored.<\/p>\n
He said PTI was claiming to make Pakistan a state on the pattern of Madina but was ignoring the fact that its economy was interest-based. \u201cThe PTI government increased the prices of daily use commodities instead of providing relief to the people,\u201d he maintained.<\/p>\n
Sardar Yousaf said the government should make it mandatory for all government employees to enroll their children in state-run schools if it wanted improvement in education.<\/p>\n
Ahmad Kundi of Pakistan People\u2019s Party (PPP), whose emotional speech draw applause from the members, said the economy could not be run on donations. He said the share of the province was increased under the 18th amendment, but the PTI was now trying to roll it back.<\/p>\n
He termed BRT as \u2018Burden Rapid Transport\u2019 and said Punjab government under Shahbaz Sharif had constructed three metro projects by spending the same amount of money being spent on the BRT.<\/p>\n
Badshah Saleh, elected from Upper Dir on PPP ticket, and Maulana Lutfur Rahman, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) lawmaker from Dera Ismail Khan, also termed the budget unrealistic and discriminatory and said many underdeveloped districts were ignored.<\/p>\n
Mian Nisar Gul, the MMA MPA from Karak, also criticised the government and warned of protests if the Rs5 billion gas royalty was not released to his oil and gas-producing district.<\/p>\n
However, PTI lawmakers including Minister for Local Government Shahram Khan Tarakai and Mufti Abdul Ghaffar lauded the budget as balanced.<\/p>\n
They said PTI won the 2018 general election because its government had delivered. He said revenue would increase and development projects completed with the passage of time.<\/p>\n
They said the net hydel profit had risen to Rs29 billion from Rs6 billion during PTI rule. They said the annual development programme (ADP) too had increased because it was Rs23 billion in 2002 and Rs88 billion in 2013. They pointed out that provincial revenue increased from Rs4.2 billion in 2002 to Rs7 billion in 2008, Rs11 billion in 2012 and Rs31 billion in 2017-18.<\/p>\n
Speaker Mushtaq Ghani asked the members to submit cut motions so these could be debated on Monday.<\/p>\n
He adjourned the session till Saturday (today) and said the assembly would meet at 10am to wind up the debate on the budget<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PESHAWAR: The opposition in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Friday lashed out at the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government for presenting an anti-people and discriminatory budget for fiscal year 2018-19. Taking part in the debate, parliamentary leader of Awami National Party (ANP) Sardar Hussain Babak said the finance minister in his budget speech criticised the past […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-peshawar","8":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n