ISLAMABAD: Taking part in the budget debate in the National Assembly, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday called for efforts to create a political consensus to abolish the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), as lawmakers from the opposition parties, while decrying their alleged political victimisation, questioned huge budgetary allocations for various institutions, including the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the judiciary.

“We realised that NAB and the Pakistani economy cannot coexist,” said the PPP chairman who had come for the first time to the assembly since the presentation of federal budget by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on June 12.

He had come to the house after presiding over a parliamentary party meeting in which the PPP decided to vote for the budget, stating that it did not want to destabilise the country.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari alleged that NAB was an institution created for political engineering and maligning politicians. He said the businessmen were running from the country whereas bureaucrats were not ready to sign the documents due to NAB’s fear.

Opposition criticises ECP, judiciary’s role in ‘victimisation’ of PTI

“It is in our manifesto and that of the other parties to abolish NAB. The biggest supporters of NAB may too support this step today,” he added.

“We do not need to send our opponents to prison to further our politics. If the step to discontinue NAB is finally taken, then it will benefit the country, its economy and democracy. If this is not done so, then at least public-private partnership projects should be exempt as was done for the SIFC,” he said.

He said the people were looking at the government and the opposition with the hope that they would sit together and form consensus to prioritise the solutions to the crises being faced by the country.

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He recalled that in the past, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had talked about a ‘Charter of Economy’, adding that “without such a charter and consensus, we cannot address the long-term problems Pakistan is riddled with”.

He complained that under the agreement signed between the PPP and PML-N at the time of the government formation, it had been agreed that the budget and related decisions, including the PSDP, should be made with the consultation of the PPP. Unfortunately, he said, this prerequisite was not fulfilled.

Mr Bhutto-Zardari expressed concern over the rise in electricity prices and ongoing loadshedding in the country amid sweltering temperatures. He called for “competitive taxation”, instead of “punitive taxation”. He regretted that every budget stressed on indirect taxation, instead of the rich and the mighty companies. In this budget too, he said, 75 to 85 per cent of tax regime was indirect taxes.

“When this is the case, then suffice to say, we are not passing a poor and people-friendly budget,” he stated.

The PPP chairman said the Sindh government had succeeded in expanding tax collection and the base, stating that they had done this because “we do not use NAB, FIA or anti-corruption to threaten the business community”.

He said the previous PTI government had attempted to make full use of NAB, FIA and similar entities to meet its targets. “They were unsuccessful, and this government will be too if it adopts the same methodology,” he said.

Later, taking part in the debate on the charged expenditure, inclu­ded in Demands for Grants and Appropriations for the next financial year, the PTI members one after the other questioned huge allocations for the ECP and the judiciary, stating that the two institutions had failed to come up to the expectations of the people.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2024