PTI rejects ‘IMF-dictated' federal budget
Speaking a presser, the Opposition Leader in National Assembly Omar Ayub, PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja, and other senior party leaders rejected the government's claim of providing relief to the salaried class, branding it a 'cruel joke', insisting that no actual relief was forthcoming.
Raja called the budget an outright joke that slams the salaried class with yet another burden. He singled out the reduction in stamp duty for plot sales in Islamabad – slashed from four per cent to just one per cent – predicting this move would not spur affordability but would instead fuel further, unjustified price hikes for federal capital real estate.
Ayub denounced the budget as a 'Leila' budget – a phantom, an illusion with no substance – and directly challenging the projected budget deficit's credibility.
He pointed a sharp finger at the soaring petroleum development levy (PDL), noting its alarming jump under the current administration, rising to Rs100 per litre from Rs20 during the tenure of ex-prime minister Imran Khan.
Dismissing the official GDP growth rate of 2.7 percent as fudged, Ayub said there was decline in all sectors, particularly agriculture and others.
He argued this figure was mathematically impossible, given the recently released Economic Survey's own admission of a mere 0.6 per cent growth in agriculture.
He questioned other statistical claims, including a reported increase of 360,000 in livestock numbers.
Ayub contested the reported industrial growth rate of -0.5 per cent, insisting that large-scale manufacturing had, in fact, contracted.
The PTI leaders further cited Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data, painting a stark picture of sharp, painful rises in the prices of essential food items.
Ayub highlighted a stark disconnect between international and local fuel prices, noting while international oil prices hovered around $64 per barrel, local petrol had surged by a staggering 70 per cent – jumping from Rs149 during the Imran Khan government to Rs253 per litre when PM Sharif is in power. He warned that these inflated prices would inevitably fuel a surge in oil smuggling from Iran.
Ayub alleged a massive Rs550 billion worth of oil, equivalent to 2.17 billion litres, was being smuggled from Iran, resulting in a crippling loss of Rs173 billion in PDL revenue that the government was failing to collect.
He claimed the chairman of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had implicitly agreed with this assessment during a standing committee meeting, stating he 'fully agreed' when Ayub raised the issue of Iranian oil smuggling and its impact on PDL revenue loss.
The opposition leader did not stop there, also charging that the then caretaker Chief Minister of Punjab, Mohsin Naqvi, now Interior Minister, had deliberately undermined local farmers by choosing to import wheat from Ukraine instead of ensuring fair prices for Punjab's own produce.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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