News
Friday, March 21, 2008
New government ‘will review NFC awards, defence budget’
* Party leaders say concurrent lists to be deleted by 2009
By Zafar Bhutta
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) led-government will review the National Finance Commission (NFC) awards and the defence budget, party leaders said at a workshop on Thursday. They said export-oriented industry would be encouraged and non-development expenditure would be reduced marginally. They also said the new government would try to delete the concurrent lists by March 2009 to empower the provinces. Senior PPP leader Syed Naveed Qamar said the new prime minister would announce a 100-day programme for “economic survival”. He said there was a huge trade deficit and the former government had handed over a “big challenge” to the new one. The PPP-led government would not wait “for several years”, he said, and would devise “a comprehensive policy to provide immediate relief”. PPP leader Fozia Wahab said the new government would have to pay a pending Rs 350 billion in subsidies by the end of the June. She said the prime minister’s expenditure would be cut down by 40 percent and no luxury vehicles would be imported. She said investors would be encouraged to invest in the manufacturing sector. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Ahsan Iqbal said that the economy needed to be restructured to match the global economy and bridge the trade deficit. He said parliamentarians should announce that they would not increase their perks and privileges during their tenure. Haji Adeel from the Awami National Party said provinces should be given autonomy and the government should focus on small dams rather than large dams. During the workshop, economists suggested bringing the agricultural sector into the tax net to increase the tax base. They also said the education budget should be increased to 6 percent.
Courtesy Daily Times