Budget for fiscal 2019-20 put to vote

The National Assembly has started voting on the budget for fiscal 2019-20.

After rejecting all cut motions of the opposition parties a day earlier, the lower house is expected to approve the Finance Bill today.

Before the final vote happened, the opposition once more recorded their protest over the budget, with most members of the opposition wearing black armbands.

Taking the floor, PML-N's Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said: "We totally reject this budget."

Ahsan Iqbal, once he got the floor, said: "If the prime minister of a country is taking it towards bankruptcy then the country doesn't require an enemy. This is an anti-growth budget that will bring in unemployment, poverty and backwardness.

"The government claims that it has reduced expenditures whereas the budget document shows that for the first time the PTI govt has allocated more than Rs1 billion for the Prime Minister's Office. Funds have been secretly allocated under the head of defence production for maintenance of the PM's aircraft.

"The prime minister who has been chosen somewhere else flies in helicopters more frequently to Banigala, using it more frequently than people use Uber taxis."

Iqbal said this is an anti-poor, anti-salaried class budget and that the "selected budget should be withdrawn and a new people-friendly budget should be presented."

Responding to the opposition, Minister for Revenue Hammad Azhar said that the opposition was quoting wrong figures and that he was "sure that the opposition had not actually read the budget document".

"For the first time in the country's history, we have reduced civil expenditures up to five per cent," Azhar said while the opposition made noise in an attempt to interrupt the minister.

Amid the din, Azhar tried to quote figures from the budget document in an attempt to prove that Prime Minister House's expenditures had actually been cut and that no new taxes had been imposed on ghee.

PPP's Raja Pervez Ashraf took the floor to say that no matter who spoke about the budget, "the fact is that every person is talking against it.

"Imran Khan had stated that if there is an honest leadership then people will happily give taxes. However, the government has failed to collect even the same amount of tax which was being collected by the previous governments that he says was 'comprising of thieves'."

Opposition wants Finance Bill to be renamed 'IMF Obedience Act'

Before the proceedings began, Leader of the Opposition Shahbaz Sharif proposed an amendment to the Finance Bill, seeking to change its title.

Through the amendment, signed by other opposition members as well, it has been suggested that the Finance Act 2019 should be called "IMF Obedience Act 2019".

Khawaja Asif, Khawaja Saad Rafique, Marrium Aurangzeb, Barjees Tahir, Murtaza Javed Abbasi, Khurram Dastagir, Ayesha Ghaus Pasha, Mohsin Ranjha and Shaza Fatima, amongst others, signed the amendment bill.

Opposition's protest on banning of the word 'selected' continues

When the session began, the opposition protested Speaker Asad Qaiser's directives against the use of the word 'selected' for the prime minister.

Former PM Abbasi said: "This is perhaps the only parliament of the world where use of the word 'selected' is banned. Everyone is saying that this is a selected government and a selected prime minister, but we cannot say it here. Since you do not like it and have banned it, I will not use the word 'selected'."

Yesterday, too, members from both sides of the aisle kept on raising slogans against each other until Speaker Qaiser, in a fit of anger, expunged the word 'selected' from the assembly proceedings and issued directives to the lawmakers and the media not to use the expunged remarks.

The opposition members, however, continued to make fun of the speaker’s directives as they kept on using the term 'selected' tactfully while moving their cut motions, which were defeated by the government members.