Budget Debate: Here’s A Quick Summary Of The Fiery Speeches By Shehbaz Sharif, Asif Ali Zardari & Asad Umar In The Parliament House

The budget debate is currently underway in the Parliament House and will continue till 29th June 2019. It is only after the budget has been approved by the Parliament that its provisions will become legally binding across the country.

While the citizens of Pakistan would have wanted a focused debate on Budget 2019 – which by the way has left the lower and the middle classes most anxious – the current session of the Parliament seems to have been hijacked by NAB arrests.

Read: Budget 2019: Here’s How It’ll Impact YOUR Household Budget For The Next One Year

Leader of opposition, Mian Shehbaz Sharif (whose son, Hamza Shehbaz is currently in NAB custody and who faces a number of corruption charges himself) as well as former President Asif Ali Zardari (who was arrested by NAB only last week and was produced before the Parliament so he could take part in the on-going session) both dedicated a significant portion of their speeches to NAB.

Shehbaz Sharif, whose speech went on for 3 hours(!) entirely rejected the budget, calling it a dictation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

During the first day of the session, in his address Sharif highlighted the economic policies of the PML-N government and drew comparisons with the current, rather unhealthy state of the Pakistani economy.

He called out Prime Minister Imran Khan for criticizing PML-N for imposing indirect taxes while his own government had, “imposed 70 per cent indirect taxes.”

Read: Prime Minister Imran Khan Stole The Thunder From Indian PM Narendra Modi At The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Summit 2019 & We Have Videos To Prove It!

The word “Master of U-turns” was used by Sharif to describe how Khan backtracked on the economic policies that he had pledged.

Asif Ali Zardari was more careful with his words and urged the government to collaborate with the opposition to “move forward.”

On the second day of the budget debate, when Zardari’s production orders were issued and he was allowed to participate in the session, the former President took the opportunity to demand an end to the “accountability process” to pave way for the government and opposition to move forward.

Challenging PTI’s economic policy, he pointed out that industries were placing ads in newspapers that screamed, “Help us!”

Read: Maryam Nawaz Compared Former Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi’s Death In Police Custody To Nawaz Sharif’s Situation & People Had All Sorts Of Reactions

“If the budget is so great,” he asked “Then why are industries crying?”

He voiced concern that the entire country might move towards agitation because of the economic situation and if such a scenario transpired, no political party would be able to do damage control.

PTI’s senior Vice President and former Minister for Finance, Asad Umar too, found himself needing to respond to the accusations of the opposition leaders.

Umar took to the floor of the House after Zardari’s speech. “Zardari sahab says the process of accountability should stop. If this process is unfair and is aimed at political victimization, then yes it should stop. But if there is any shred of evidence that proves that the arrested leaders have stolen from the Pakistani people then accountability should continue by all means.”

Asad Umar even lambasted his own government for an unfriendly budget.

Whether he was playing the good cop or he truly meant what he said, Asad Umar minced no words while criticizing PTI for presenting a budget that was likely to add to the woes of common citizens.

He urged the government to reconsider the taxes proposed on essential food items. He suggested that taxes on sugar, oil and ghee should be done away with.

He also proposed a 10 – 15% increase in the pensions.

Umar squarely placed the responsibility for the current state of the economy on PML-N and PPP’s past policies.