Islamabad, 31st May, 2017: Senator Sehar Kamran (TI) during her budget speech in the Senate of Pakistan said the current government which is presenting its fifth budget has failed to fulfill the aspirations and hope of the people of Pakistan during its tenure. She criticized the government for presenting a false rosy picture to justify its own shortcomings and incompetence by just rearranging the numbers and words. She opined that how a government or state can function when their expenditures are more than their set targets?
Senator Kamran said the decline in exports, remittances and increase in fiscal deficit are proof of the current regime’s incompetence which they are trying to hide by increasing direct and indirect taxes. She said this vision doesn’t even comply with the ‘Vision 2025’ set by the government itself which can be observed in its allocation for health and education. She said where vision 2025 talked about increase in literacy rate to 90%, we have witnessed that literacy rate has actually dropped to 58% whereas it was 60% in 2012 under PPP’s government.
Senator Kamran said this government came to power on the promise of resolving electricity crisis but today we see that the circular debt has reached Rs 402 billion and electricity shortfall is now around 7,000 MW yet the resolution of this crisis is nowhere in sight. She said instead of focusing on peace, progress and prosperity, this regime focused on enhancing its personal vested interests for personal gains.
Senator Sehar Kamran said the government’s lack of interest in combating terrorism in which Pakistan has suffered more than any other nation and sacrificed more than 70,000 people in this fight, unanimously supported by the Parliament and the people, is evident from the fact that they have failed to implement the ‘National Action Plan’. The NAP has totally become the ‘No Action Plan’. She said the government’s seriousness in the fight against terrorism can be gouged from the fact that NACTA’s (the premium body to combat terrorism) budget has been reduced ten-fold.
She said the government’s inability to maintain and reform national institutions like PIA and steel mills is another example of their lack of commitment to the public and state of Pakistan. She said this government is only competent in one department and that is the ‘Leak Department’ where the Panama and Dawn leaks have cause international embarrassment to our citizens. She said FIA is very proactive but only in taking action against peaceful citizens whereas the social media pages of 41 out of 64 banned outfits are operating without any fear or consequence.
On the topic of CPEC, Senator Sehar Kamran said the lack of transparency, mismanagement and wrong decisions are turning this opportunity into a liability. She concluded her speech by saying that all these facts and figures are indeed a charge sheet on the current regime and the common man today has only one demand which is: “This government must go. Go Nawaz Go.”