I went through the long list of things that our government of the People (or PPP) presented to the nation and my instant response was to throw away the whole budget into the dustbin (or the minister) for keeping so many things obscure and providing full room for corruption while with his new extra taxes, he is surely going to squeeze the last drop of blood out of the middle and poor class of our society.

Can he just tell me what was the pro poor things in this budget? Regularizing Grade 1-5 people and increasing the pension is the only achievement they can show to us? Everything else seemed pro corruption and anti Pakistan to me.

Moreover, i was also amazed at the Benazir Card, Benazir Fund and Benazir this and that! I won’t have been surprised if he suggested a change of name for Pakistan to Benaziristan because she garlanded us with Zardari who robbed us in 90’s and am sure won’t spare us this time as well. This is again ridiculous that the government want to construct one million low cost housing units in the country. At one end they increase the price of cement while on the other hand they want to create 1 million housing units. I wonder from where they import this special brain to make a budget. If this is what they call a budget, i think its a National Shame!

Increase in import duties on luxury cars while in reality it is just to support our selected families who own local car manufacturing companies and who cant face any competition despite robbing the middle class Pakistani’s for past so many decades. So many support funds are a strong indicator of upcoming corruption. The increase in the Supreme Court judges was another thing that came as surprise to me. We have already ransacked the most competent judges and want to retire them early while on the other hand we think we are short on judges and hence want to hire new ones. Are we all insane? What the poor has to do with the new judges when he can’t get justice? When our citizens are handed over to Americans to be mutilated in Guantanamo and his family can’t even come out to protest, what am i going to do with even 1000 Supreme Court judges? We need justice and not extra judges who will in return enjoy benefits at our expense.

The increase in Sales Tax from 15% to 16% was another great pro Poor step of our government because they want to eliminate poverty by simply killing them. And look at the confidence of our dummy Prime Minister who gave his speech about Defence Budget just two days before the budget and promised to reduce the military budget while in reality it increased by Rs. 20 billion. What a confident liar we have as our Prime Minister that even Bush wants to take some crash courses from him.

To summarize it is that to me the Budget is nothing but just a collection of lies and false promises and it is not Pro Pakistan at all! Highlights can be found below (thanks to Jang Group)

• NFC session will be convened.
  

• Agriculture sector ignored during last 8 years, wheat support price to be re-evaluated in next season for improving agriculture sector.
  

• Rs. 75 billion reserved for improvement in population resources.
  

• Defence budget to be tabled in National Assembly and all its components to be discussed.
  

• The performance of Securities and Exchange Commission being further enhanced to protect investors. (till date it has only been filled with corrupt people and their children)
  

• Pay and Pension committee to be set up to review salaries and allowances of employees. (only influential will get raise)
  

• Rs. 34 billion allocated for Benazir Support Program, which will be later, increased to Rs. 50 billion. (her family led by Zardari can use this fund)

• Govt. to check rising cost of production, and spiraling of prices, effective measures being taken to control the problem. (the way they have done till date? right?)
  

• 90 percent tax exemption to be given for development of industry in rural areas in first year.
  

• Domestic and foreign investors will be encouraged to initiate new projects in Pakistan. (abdullah yousaf is going to dance for them to attract them? Coz else i dont see any other good reason for them to com here)
  

• Reduction in expenditures of the Prime Minister’s Secretariat and National Assembly. (will you tell us the total amount spent in the last one year on our prime minister and why dont you also make it public every month)
  

• Low Cost Housing.
  

• One million housing units to be built for low-income groups.

• Ban imposed on import of luxury goods by govt offices.

• Import duty raised from 30% to 35% on 300 luxury items.

• All expenses of govt offices freezed except for salaries. (so is Zardari not going to use government security guards and resources for his personal visits)

• Sales tax raised to 16% from 15%

• Import duty raised to 100% from 90% on luxury cars.

• 30 percent cut in NAB’s budget.

• Govt. to set up Textile City, Marble City and other Industrial Zones to boost national exports.

• Rs. 24.3 billion to be allocated for Education sector (we give 100 times more to defence as we think only guns can save us and not brains. The result we all are witnessing)

• Rs. 37 billion allocated to improve country’s road network and highways (Now here our ministers can recover the cost of their election campaigns)

• Lady Health Workers Program initiated in Benazir Bhutto’s tenure of 1994, will be further strengthened by hiring 100 thousand more Lady Health Workers.

• New medical programs being initiated to eradicate deadly diseases, more funds will be allocated for this purpose. (only initiated and never concludes or reach conclusion)

• 15 percent custom duty abolished on CNG

• One million houses to be built for poor and low paid govt employees. (Exactly the way MQM Built for their street thugs at a cost of $7 billion)

• Minimum pension raised to Rs2000 from Rs300.

• Conveyance allowance doubled for employees of Grade 1 to 19

• Contractual employees of Grade 1 to 15 to be regularized.

• Medical allowance raised from Rs425 to Rs500 for govt employees of Grade 1 to 16 (What a remarkable achievement! Are you kidding me that a poor gets just Rs. 500 for his medicines? Are there some special pro poor medicines in Pakistan?)

• Number of Supreme Court judges increased to 29 from 16 (Cases of justice given will be decreased from 16 to 0! Right?)

• Federal govt employees’ salaries raised by 20%, same increase for armed forces proposed

• Pensions increased by 20%

• Budget deficit target 4.7% of GDP.

• Rs1000 per month to be provided to poor families (whose going to identify them? I am sure the whole Cabinet would declare their servents as poor and their families as most deserving)

• Later, Benazir Cards will also be issued to help the poor

• Custom duty abolished on energy savers

• EPB zone to be established in Balochistan

• Profit on national savings schemes to be raised by 2% (Its natural as interest rates have risen)

• Rs.543 billion allocated for development programs in the budget (corruption programs)

• 5 percent excise duty abolished on crop insurance scheme

• Remittances coming into Pakistan after the incident of 9/11 could not be best utilized, the basic infrastructure could have been improved from this amount.

• Agriculture Bank to be strengthened so that more incentives could be given to agriculture sector.

• 10 percent custom duty is being abolished to improve the production of rice.

• The gap between demand and supply has increased over the years and there has been no investment in the power-generation sector since 1994.

• The number of Utility Stores will be increased to 6000 so that poor people could be provided with more relief.

• Rs.28.4 billion allocated for Peoples Works Program.

• National Identity Cards to be provided free of cost to people.

• Import duty on PTA reduced to 7.5% from 15%

• Import duty reduced from 10% to 5% on import of chemicals used in manufacturing of medicine.

• Rs.75 billion allocated for construction of dams and for irrigation

• Wheat support price fixed at Rs.625.

• Demand-supply gap of electricity is 2500 MW.

• 25% increase in FBR revenue target.

• PSDP Rs.543 billion.

• Exchange rate witnessed 6.4% decrease.

• Rs.66 bn allocated for power sector.

• Import duty raised from Rs.150 to Rs.200 per kg on betel leaf.

• Minimum wage raised from Rs.4600 to Rs.6000

• Benazir Income Support Programme to be launched with Rs.34 billion which will be increased to Rs.50 bn later.

• Country’s fiscal deficit will be controlled and Foreign Exchange Reserves will be increased.

• Efforts are being made to save electricity; duration of load shedding will be shortened, government will make sure that enough electricity is available for agriculture and industrial sectors.

• The economic situation worsened due to previous government’s policies and past fiscal deficit.

• Our industry is not market-driven and due to increased electricity prices the situation has seen a drastic change.

• Sales tax abolished on fertilizers.

• Improvement of tax mechanism on auto-industry.

• Proposal to give relief to call centers from excessive taxes.

• PTA duty to be fixed at 7 percent.

• Pharmaceutical industry to be given more incentives.

• Govt. to take measures to increase production of cotton in the country.

• Rs.1.1 billion reserved for improvement for fish-brewing sector.

• Pakistan will be made an investors friendly destination, and efforts will be made to strengthen the social sector for which focus will be given to housing sector.

• More focus to be given on revenue generation, FBR performance has been satisfactory; there has been considerable increase in revenue collection.

• 5% excise duty abolished on crops insurance.

• 10% custom duty on import of rice seed abolished.

• Sales Tax abolished on fertilizers.

• Minister of Finance, Revenues, Economic Affairs and Privatization, Syed Naveed Qamar is presenting the budget at the floor of lower house.

• The Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani along with other Cabinet Ministers is present in the National Assembly.

• This budget is aimed at stabilizing the economy.

• Demand supply gap in electricity of 2500 MW in the country.

• Cold storage stores to be constructed to boost export.

• DAP fertilizer subsidy increased from Rs.470 to Rs.1000.

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