PRIME Minister Shehbaz Sharif has reportedly set up multiple special committees to finalise budget for next fiscal year after finding shortcomings in finance ministry’s proposals. These committees will present their recommendations in areas of agriculture, revenue measures, information technology, energy, pro-poor expenditures, development budget and industrial growth.
The course pursued by the PM for budget preparation is prudent and helps make financial document more participatory and pro-poor. Given current economic situation, it in fact was need of the hour that different stakeholders are involved to prepare such a budget that sets right direction of the economy. It is time to demonstrate discipline in our conduct with focus on enhancing tax revenues by bringing in more people into the tax net and exploit true potential of our productive sectors especially agriculture, industries and the IT. It is only through exports that economic woes can be addressed yet it’s unfortunate that during the outgoing year our investments and savings remained below official targets. The 13.5% investment-to-GDP ratio is one of the lowest in recent years and significantly below regional peers. Last year, the ratio stood at 15.6%. The successive governments’ taxation and economic policies have played a significant role in diverting funds from productive sectors to the unproductive and speculative real estate sector. Hence, the next budget should envisage measures that encourage investments and pouring in of resources in productive sectors.
By extending facilitation and necessary support, this is very much achievable. Failure is no longer an option and we expect that committees working on productive sectors will come up with some useful recommendations to uplift these sectors in real sense. While preparing the budget, government must also not forget the plight of fixed income groups. The unprecedented inflation trends have hit them the most. It has been reported that Defence Minister Khawaja Asif is leading a committee to recommend measures for allocating money for increase in salaries, pensions, subsidies and grants. Indeed minimum wage and salaries of public sector employees need to be enhanced keeping in view current price hike. Similarly, cash assistance under the BISP needs to be enhanced while any subsidy plan needs to be more targeted as the country can not longer afford across the board subsidies.
