Sherry calls the mini-budget regressive

Islamabad: Parliamentary Leader of the PPP in the Senate, Senator Sherry Rehman expressed grave concern over the mini-budget in the Senate Finance Committee and said the inflation in Pakistan has skyrocketed to a massive 12.30% in December and had jumped from 11.50% in November.

“Now, the government wants to pass the mini-budget and increase taxes of 1,700 items by a whopping 17% and exacerbate the plight of the people across the country. This is not governance; this is signing over the lives and livelihoods of hardworking Pakistani people off to the hands of the IMF,” she said.

She said, “There is a mini-budget every week; prices of all essential items such as flour, sugar, electricity, fuel and medicine have all skyrocketed during the tenure of the government and yet they claim that there is no inflation in the country. Gas alone has risen by a massive 300%, despite this, the supply of gas is abysmal throughout the country; people cannot cook food and industries can no longer function.”

Speaking about the new wave of taxation she said “The mini-budget presented will have an underlying impact on all goods and services throughout the country and put the economy in a further state of disarray. A 17% tax is both regressive and oppressive as it will be the poor people of the country who will bear the brunt of this callous proposal. The tax increase on raw materials for pharmaceuticals is going to prove disastrous and is going to further increase the prices of drugs that have already increased rapidly during the tenure of the current government by 150%. In a country that is suffering severely from malnutrition, the government has decided to slap on a 17% tax on locally produced baby formula milk and baby food. The heartlessness behind this proposal is reprehensible.”

Addressing the transition into renewable energy, she said, “This government that paints itself as a champion for climate change has also added a 17% tax on products needed to develop renewable energy like solar and wind. This is going to have a direct impact on the National Renewable Energy Policy (NREP) which aims to transform Pakistan’s energy mix to 30% renewables by 2030. PTI is setting itself up for failure at its own promise. The increase in tax on electric vehicles goes directly against the government’s pledge to promote electric vehicles in Pakistan as part of Pakistan’s National Electric Vehicle Policy, which claimed to bring GST on Electric Vehicles down to 1% and ensure that 30% of all new car sales in 2030 will be Electric. We need to incentivise the transition to renewables, not slap taxes on it to make it virtually impossible for anyone in Pakistan to justify the purchase.”

She concluded by saying, “Pakistan’s economy is on the ventilator and inflation is at a 22-month high, any government that heeds the cries of the people protesting out in the streets would have put this mini-budget to bed a long time ago. We categorically reject the mini-budget.”