Petition filed against amendments to debt laws
The Lahore High Court (LHC) has sought arguments on a petition requesting full disclosure of Pakistan's total external debt, including hidden liabilities, markup, and insurance costs.
The plea also challenges the Fiscal Responsibility & Debt Limitation (FRDL) Act 2005, claiming it is unconstitutional.
Justice Shahid Karim directed the concerned parties to present their arguments on the matter, which questions alleged irregularities in the government's debt calculations and amendments to financial laws.
Petitioner Munir Ahmed contended that the federal government had altered the definition of "public debt" in violation of a Supreme Court ruling. The top court had previously ruled that such changes required approval from the federal cabinet and both houses of Parliament. However, the government reportedly bypassed this process and made significant modifications to the FRDL Act 2005 through the Finance Act 2017.
According to the petition, the amended debt calculation formula now excludes deposits held by provincial and federal governments within the banking system.
As a result, the reported national debt was understated by approximately Rs2 trillion, showing public debt at Rs18.9 trillion as of March 2017.
The petitioner further argued that these changes were not included in the original Finance Bill 2017, which was approved by the federal cabinet on May 26, 2017.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Express Tribune
3 hours ago
- Express Tribune
Justice Mansoor Ali Shah becomes acting CJP in rare Eid day ceremony
Listen to article Senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, took oath as the Acting Chief Justice of Pakistan on Saturday, in an unprecedented ceremony held on Eid day at the Supreme Court's Lahore Registry. The oath was administered by Justice Ayesha A. Malik, marking a rare event where the swearing-in of the country's top judicial office took place outside the federal capital and on a public holiday. The ceremony was attended by Supreme Court judges Justice Shahid Waheed, Justice Aamer Farooq, Justice Shahid Bilal Hassan, and Justice Ali Baqar Najafi. Advocate General Punjab Amjad Pervez, along with several senior members of the legal fraternity, was also present. Justice Mansoor Ali Shah will serve as Acting Chief Justice until June 10, during the absence of Chief Justice Yahya Afridi, who is currently in Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj. Justice Isa is expected to resume his duties upon his return next week.
Express Tribune
8 hours ago
- Express Tribune
US Supreme Court grants DOGE access to sensitive social security data
The U.S. Supreme Court building is seen the morning before justices are expected to issue opinions in pending cases, in Washington, U.S., June 14, 2024. Photo:REUTERS Listen to article The US Supreme Court granted on Friday the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a key player in President Donald Trump's drive to slash the federal workforce, broad access to personal information on millions of Americans in Social Security Administration data systems while a legal challenge plays out. On the request of the Justice Department, the judiciary had put on hold Maryland-based US District Judge Ellen Hollander's order that had largely blocked DOGE's access to "personally identifiable information" in data such as medical and financial records while litigation proceeds in a lower court. Hollander found that allowing DOGE unfettered access likely would violate a federal privacy law. The top court's brief, unsigned order did not provide a rationale for siding with DOGE. BREAKING: The Supreme Court grants DOGE affiliates access to Social Security Administration records. Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson would deny the request. — SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) June 6, 2025 The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal justices dissented from the order. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in a dissent that was joined by fellow liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, criticized the court's majority for granting DOGE "unfettered data access" despite the administration's "failure to show any need or any interest in complying with existing privacy safeguards." In a separate order on Friday, the Supreme Court extended its block on judicial orders requiring DOGE to turn over records to a government watchdog group that sought details on the entity established by US President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk. DOGE swept through federal agencies as part of the Republican president's effort, spearheaded by Musk, to eliminate federal jobs, downsize and reshape the US government and root out what they see as wasteful spending. Musk formally ended his government work on May 30. Two labor unions and an advocacy group filed suits to prevent DOGE from accessing sensitive data at the Social Security Administration (SSA), including social security numbers, bank account data, tax information, earnings history and immigration records. The agency is a major provider of government benefits, sending checks each month to more than 70 million recipients including retirees and disabled Americans. Democracy Forward, a liberal legal group that represented the plaintiffs, said Friday's order would put millions of Americans' data at risk. "Elon Musk may have left Washington DC, but his impact continues to harm millions of people," the group said in a statement. "We will continue to use every legal tool at our disposal to keep unelected bureaucrats from misusing the public's most sensitive data as this case moves forward." In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued that SSA had been "ransacked" and that DOGE members had been installed without proper vetting or training. They demanded access to some of the agency's most sensitive data systems. Hollander in an April 17 ruling found that DOGE had failed to explain why its stated mission required "unprecedented, unfettered access to virtually SSA's entire data systems". "For some 90 years, SSA has been guided by the foundational principle of an expectation of privacy with respect to its records," Hollander wrote. "This case exposes a wide fissure in the foundation." Hollander issued a preliminary injunction that prohibited DOGE staffers and anyone working with them from accessing data containing personal information, with only narrow exceptions. The judge's ruling did allow DOGE affiliates to access data that had been stripped of private information as long as those seeking access had gone through the proper training and passed background checks. Hollander also ordered DOGE affiliates to "disgorge and delete" any personal information already in their possession. The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in a 9-6 vote declined on April 30 to pause Hollander's block on DOGE's unlimited access to Social Security Administration records. Justice department lawyers in their Supreme Court filing characterized Hollander's order as judicial overreach. "The district court is forcing the executive branch to stop employees charged with modernizing government information systems from accessing the data in those systems because, in the court's judgment, those employees do not 'need' such access," they wrote. The six dissenting judges wrote that the case should have been treated the same as one in which 4th Circuit panel ruled 2-1 to allow DOGE to access data at the US Treasury and Education Departments and the Office of Personnel Management. In a concurring opinion, seven judges who ruled against DOGE wrote that the case involving Social Security data was "substantially stronger" with "vastly greater stakes," citing "detailed and profoundly sensitive Social Security records," such as family court and school records of children, mental health treatment records and credit card information.
Business Recorder
20 hours ago
- Business Recorder
Fixing budget to unleash growth
Every year, Pakistan's federal budget arrives with familiar choreography: a frantic scramble for revenue, a ritualistic promise of belt-tightening, a prayer for donor approval—and, inevitably, a deepening economic funk. The budget, instead of being a strategic tool to unleash growth and build reserves, has become a reactive exercise designed to appease creditors and perpetuate the status quo. This is not just a budgeting problem—it is a full-blown political economy failure. To break this cycle, we must fundamentally reimagine the budget—not as a ledger-balancing ritual, but as the central engine of economic revival through a sustained growth acceleration. Bloated government Pakistan's budget has historically expanded alongside a steady growth in government spending—starting with the welfare and development spree of the Bhutto years. Since then, successive governments have continued to bloat expenditures, expand political patronage networks, and indulge in borrowed vanity projects. Unsurprisingly, the lion's share of the budget is now devoured by a bloated and inefficient government machinery—ministries, SOEs, elite subsidies, and ever-growing civilian and military pensions. Development spending (PSDP) does not fare much better. It is either slashed mid-year or burned on politically motivated brick-and-mortar projects that neither raise productivity nor enhance exports. Numerous studies show that public investment in Pakistan is failing to crowd in private capital, generate jobs, or enhance competitiveness. No surprise, then, that economic growth has been on a steady downward slope this century. Don't tax the economy to death Maintaining the donor mantra that the 'tax-to-GDP ratio is low,' the IMF responds to our fiscal deficits by prescribing more and more taxes. When unrealistic revenue targets fall short, they roll out the usual remedy: 'further taxes,' 'additional taxes,' 'super taxes'—all piled on top of already over-taxed sectors in the infamous minibudget blitzes. The result? A regressive, volatile, and thoroughly anti-growth tax regime. Pakistan's real problem is not just low revenue—it is the structure of revenue—complicated, intrusive, and volatile. The consequence is a skewed, unjust, and investment-suppressing system. As deficits ballooned alongside unchecked political largesse, public debt skyrocketed past the 60 percent of GDP ceiling set by the 2003 Fiscal Responsibility Act—an IMF-sponsored law. Today, over 50 percent of the federal budget is consumed by interest payments. Yet both federal and provincial governments continue spending with abandon. Just in FY2025, they added over 60 new government agencies. Apparently, austerity is for textbooks — not our political class. A good budget To shift the budget toward growth, we must reframe our fiscal strategy around three core objectives: investment facilitation, economic restructuring, and foreign exchange generation. Our fiscal culture is rooted in control. Every economic activity is smothered in paperwork, redundant approvals, and bureaucratic misalignment. The budget must empower cities, universities, and private innovators—not just federal ministries. Local governments have been 'in the pipeline' for decades. While this issue lies beyond the immediate scope of the budget, it is crucial that administrative decentralization and institutional autonomy be pursued with proper performance checks and accountability frameworks. Perhaps the most urgent—and overdue—reform is the restructuring of the Planning Commission and the PSDP. The Haq/HAG model of brick-and-mortar development must evolve into a productivity-enhancing strategy. Let us transform the PSDP into a competitive grants framework—empowering cities and knowledge institutions to innovate, tied to clear outcomes in research, urban regeneration, and enterprise development. Likewise, the Planning Commission should be converted into a genuine reform engine—steering away from bloated plans and abstract visions that no one reads, let alone implements. And yes, this also means an end to discretionary funds and politically captive schemes. Enough random taxation The obsession with squeezing more out of the same tax base is strangling the economy. We need to broaden the base by simplifying, lowering, and stabilizing the tax structure—rather than repeatedly taxing the same goods and sectors into oblivion. As we outlined in the Haque Tax Commission Report of 2024: a) Simplify the tax code and reduce compliance burdens b) Replace withholding and turnover taxes with a value-added tax (VAT) system, with automatic and credible refunds c) Streamline documentation requirements for entering the tax system d) Broaden the base through digitization and administrative ease e) Most importantly, stop the frantic revenue drives that inject volatility, erode confidence, and drive away both domestic and foreign investment A good time to open the economy The relentless thirst for revenue has turned tariffs into a catch-all crutch—even exports now suffer because import duties are raising the cost of globally integrated inputs. Worse still, policy remains trapped in an outdated import-substitution mindset that rewards rent-seeking rather than export excellence. It is time for a bold pivot: abandon import substitution and stop using tariffs as a revenue crutch. Elementary economics teaches that tariffs are used to prevent a needed exchange rate adjustment. Tariffs can never be a competitive strategy. If we are serious about export-led growth—not just sloganeering—we must let the rupee find its true value, open the economy, and dismantle protectionist walls. Make the budget a living, transparent document For two decades, we have had a grand-sounding World Bank project—PIFRA ('Project to Improve Financial Reporting and Auditing')—with nothing to show. We still lack basic budget transparency. Follow the rest of the world and now adopt accrual-based budgeting across Pakistan. Here is a modest proposal for the finance minister: Make PIFRA live for public access this year. Put real-time dashboards online so citizens can trace every rupee spent. Growth is the only way out Our fiscal burden continues to grow as economic growth slows. The only way to break free from perpetual debt, IMF bailouts, and creeping default is through a sustained acceleration of private sector-led growth. This must be the cornerstone of budget policy: raise private investment from today's pitiful 8–9 percent of GDP to over 20 percent in five years. Deregulate. Open up. Simplify taxes and documentation. Build a performance-oriented public sector that enables growth—not one that chases after taxes with a club and spends the money on useless projects, bloated government, and patronage. Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
