Common Minimum Program
Budgets are not made in heaven, at least not for the poor. The unfortunate fact of life is that man-made budgets caters mainly for the rich, the hapless get by with lip-service and a lot of rhetoric force-fed down their throats in lieu of food and water. As someone employing, mostly khaki-collar workers, one can personally vouch that while the raising of the minimum salary to Rs 3000 pm from Rs 2500 pm is extremely welcome, it is not enough. For eking out the most meager existence in the prevailing rate of inflation (State Bank of Pakistan assessed it a double-digit 11% in comparison to the 9.3% claimed by the government), the very minimum a family unit of four requires for survival on the poverty-line is Rs 4000 pm. That is a ground reality as evidenced on hard fact, not based on the theoretical calculations of paper-shufflers confined to their air-conditioned offices who have to rely on inaccurate observations of others, they are fed what they want to hear. The minimum wage must be Rs 4000 pm, the alternative is that millions and millions of our countrymen will keep going deeper into debt (upto 1000 pm) just to stay alive.
Relatively speaking, this Federal Budget is better than the one announced last year, and again relatively speaking, the one announced last year was better than the one of the previous year, and so on. Omar Ayub Khan, Federal State Minister for Finance, the grandson of Field Marshal Ayub Khan, and the son of former Speaker National Assembly Gohar Ayub Khan and serving MNA Begum Zeb Gohar Ayub, did a credible job of presenting the Budget. The number crunching notwithstanding the Federal Budget continues to crunch human beings, fully 40% of Pakistan’s now survive (not live) below the poverty line, 15% more than that a decade or so ago. The relief given to government employees by increasing their salaries by 15% and the pensions by 10% is welcome but unfortunately not good enough. Given present inflation and the requirements of modern living, government employees should have been given a 100% increase (in line with corporate standards), with pensions of all rationalized so that old pensioners and new pensioner of the same grade would get the same pension, and lastly, the minimum pensions should be commensurate to the minimum costs (Rs 4000 pm) of surviving in Pakistan on the poverty-line.
The incentives given for exports, particularly for textiles is an excellent initiative. The general reduction in taxes will give sustainability to economic uplift. The reduction of activation fee for cellular telephones deprives the government of revenues, these can be used offset some of the expenditures. With a couple of million telephones activated every year, (this by choice of the individual and not by compulsion), revenues earned amount to Rs 5000 million (or Rs 5 billion). A 20% excise duty must be imposed on every mobile call, after all the revenues are generated out of plain ether. Duties on cars upto 1000cc should have been brought down to 25% and the duties on cars upto 1300cc pegged at a maximum of 50%. Luxury duties should be imposed on luxury cars, the rich can afford it and will not break any sweat paying the extra amount. The reduction of duties on fertilizers and farm machinery was well received, we are an agri-based economy and we must ensure that the farmers be given every incentive to produce more and more food grains. One of our saving graces as a nation is that we cannot almost manage to feed ourselves, as a developing country that is a great asset.
The Defence Budget has increased from Rs 193 billion to Rs 224 billion, annual inflation of 11% covers Rs 21 billion, the actual increase of the balance Rs 10 billion makes for only 5%, a miniscule quantity given the on-going “war on terrorism” and the “capital outlays” proposed in India’s Defence Budget, by themselves more than our entire Defence Budget. Have we catered for the US$ 3 billion required over the next three years to purchase upto 75 upgraded F-16s? Better budgeting and expenditure management at the grassroots level is required, not to mention integrating the three Services and carrying out total overhaul of the Armed Forces Table of Organization and Equipment (TO&E) to cater for 21st century wars, not that 19th century ones we are geared for presently. An Armed Forces possessing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them is a strange contradiction to our basic infantryman carrying the obsolete calibre 7.62 mm Rifle G3. Have we ever taken these to task who is the late 1980s opposed the changeover to calibre 5.56 mm because of motivated reasons? We must get more “bang from the buck”, this can only be done by having a better “teeth-to-tail ratio”.
The socio-economic infra-structure serving the great mass of people is under grave threat of collapsing, the government is not doing enough to re-construct and maintain the existing system. Population increases and rapid urbanisation due to rural-to-urban migration has contributed to this situation. Industrial estates in underdeveloped areas should include tax incentives and soft loans, even outright grants. Electricity, gas and water is going out of the reach of the common man, while adequate sewerage medicine, transportation and education facilities are increasingly becoming scarce for his family. What we require is a “Common Minimum Program” (CMP) that should not only become a part of the ruling coalition manifesto but should be publicly negotiated with the Opposition 3-4 months ahead of the Federal Budget. The CMP will provide a minimum safety net for all our citizens. The elected representatives really care about those who elect them and their opposition to each other is not for opposition’s sake alone. If whoever is in power can continue something better than base standard of living given in the CMP, it will be to their credit.
The present Federal Budget, though weighted in favour of the rich, is a fair achievement in the given economic circumstances, give the Shaukat Aziz government a “B Plus” for the effort. He will get an “A” when the benefits we keep hearing about finally trickles down to the masses.
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