ISLAMABAD: Questioning the veracity of the government’s statistics during the second day of debate on the federal budget, the opposition in the National Assembly pointed out shortcomings in the finance bill and predicted that the illusion of stability offered by the finance ministry would soon come apart at the seams.

The highlight of Tuesday’s proceedings was the speech by the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf financial wizard, Asad Umar.

The former Engro Corp CEO delivered a well-crafted rebuttal to the finance minister’s budget address that was far less didactic than Ishaq Dar’s jargon-laden monologue.

During his speech, he informed the house that the government had incorporated a rider into the new finance bill, to amend the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, which offers cover to offshore companies.

“In Clause 523, section 18, sub-section (2), clause (bb) for the semi-colon, a full stop shall be substituted and thereafter the following explanation shall be added: ‘For the removal of doubt it is clarified that the trust under this clause shall include a foreign trust’,” he read, ostensibly from a copy of the latest finance bill.

“Why was this explanation necessary? If they amended the law now, they still couldn’t hide past crimes. This is why they have dressed this up as a clarification, so they could claim that this was the law all along.”

Alleging that this was how the government wanted to cover up its tax evasion and legitimise offshore companies revealed in the Panama Papers, he claimed that all attempts to discuss the matter in the Standing Committee on Finance had been stonewalled.

“If the finance bill is passed with this in it, my faith in democracy in Pakistan will definitely be shaken,” he concluded.

Numbers game

Earlier, Mr Umar said that many leading economic experts had termed the government’s numbers implausible and called the budget statistics into question.

Despite this, he stuck to the numbers given in the Economic Survey of Pakistan, underlining that they did not line up with Mr Dar’s claims of the country having achieved ‘economic stability’.

“Even if we accept the government’s figures [and examine] the comparison given in the budget documents ... Pakistan’s growth rate was 6.8pc in the 1960s, 4.6 in the 1970s, 6.5 in the 1980s, 4.6 in the 1990s and in the first decade of this century, our average growth rate was 4.7pc. By the government’s own admission, our average growth rate over the past three years has been 4.3pc, which is the lowest it has been in the past 50 years.”

“The economy has slipped even below the levels where our colleagues from the PPP left it,” was his backhanded compliment to the main opposition party. Sensing that he could kill two birds with one stone, he continued this vein, showing the ruling party down with frequent comparisons to the Asif Ali Zardari government.

“Investment, which constituted 19 to 20pc of the economy around a decade ago, had fallen to 15.5pc in 2013. But then a government took over that is business-savvy; Mian sahib runs a number of successful businesses himself. The current economic survey, however, puts investment at 15.1pc, the lowest it has been in the past 60 years,” he said.

“No doubt, my party criticised the Zardari government, as I’m sure the current ruling party also did over the five years the PPP was in power. In that time, the PPP government amassed an annual Rs1.2 trillion in debt, which is no small amount. But in the first three years of this government, the annual increase in debt rose to around Rs2 trillion,” he said, to the sounds of “Shame! Shame!” from the opposition benches.

He was even more sarcastic when he read out the power generation statistics. “The government is touting a 300-megawatt increase in installed capacity over three years, while the demand has gone up by 1,000 megawatts. If this keeps up, perhaps Hussain Nawaz’s grandchildren will live to see a loadshedding-free Pakistan.”

His incredulity grew as he turned to the natural gas situation. “New discoveries are being made, LNG is being touted so much it seems like each house has its own LNG supply ship; everyone knows there’s so much gas that we don’t know what to do with it.”

Turning his sights on the parliamentary secretary for finance — in the absence of the finance minister — he continued, “Rana Afzal Khan, what is this that your ministry has published? [Your people] are saying that the total supply of natural gas, including LNG, is less than the level it was at five years ago!”

This drew jeers from the opposition, but the parliamentary secretary seated on the front bench was unfazed.

Criticism in both houses

In a less-than thought-out tirade, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed also questioned the various figures quoted in the budget documents. He was at once a spokesperson for struggling farmers who couldn’t sell their products and a vocal opponent of the tobacco lobby, who he claimed were very happy with the measures introduced in the current budget.

In a lengthy speech, Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Dr Farooq Sattar took issue with the lack of provision for urban development in the federal PSDP. “I’m not just arguing Karachi’s case here; this is the case of Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar, Hyderabad and Faisalabad, all the engines of development.”

He reiterated his party’s demand for an overhaul of Karachi’s water supply system, and also took offence at the increase in the cost of education-related materials, such as stationery items, terming it a blow to students across the country.

Meanwhile in the Senate, members from smaller provinces accused the ruling party of preparing a budget to benefit Punjab alone, and criticised the government for presenting it without finalising a fresh National Finance Commission (NFC) award first.

Pakistan Peoples Party’s Sherry Rehman and Saeed Ghani, as well as Usman Kakar of the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, complained that the three smaller provinces had been ignored in the budget.

Ms Rehman claimed that the new budget did not just defy devolution; it seemed to be a step towards rolling back the 18th amendment, while Mr Ghani also regretted that no new development projects had been announced for Sindh.

Senator Farhatullah Babar took exception to the allocation of Rs250 million for the proposed National Institute of Human Rights that is being set up under an executive order, since the National Commission of Human Rights, which was set up under an act of parliament, already existed.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2016