ISLAMABAD . A Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) post budget huddle on Monday cautioned the government to implement an across the board subsidy -free approach to address the worst ever economic crisis and seize Pakistan’s on-going economic melt down .
Dr Abid Suleri , SDPI executive director , while initiating the debate on “SDPI’s Response To Budget 2022-23″, said right now the country was facing multi-faceted crisis and undoubtedly it’s a big challeng for the incumbent government to cope with it in short span of time. Dr Abid Suleri highlighted significance and benefits of doing away with the culture of subsidies in Pakistan.
‘”It’s a difficult phase of Pakistan’s history and there is an urgent need to form a strategy wherein everyone should come up and play a role to help Pakistan get out of the current economic mess”, Dr Abid Suleri noted.
He expressed confidence that Pakistan will meet the challenges it was facing in current economic situation and sail through these difficult times. He told a questioner that the budget 2022-23 has all ingredients to not only jack up its current exports level, but also move forward to get its exports target of $ 35 billion in next fiscal .
Dr Waqar , deputy executive director SDPI, criticised the government for granting concessions in tax period and rates of taxes in the next fiscal year budget and demanded review of the policy to face the challenges . He referred the case of film industry and exemptions being provided to elite and influential of the country. Dr Waqar said ,” The grant of a number of concessions to film industry was not only contradictory to the government assurances given to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to secure a bail out package and avoid default on payments but also a disturbing signal for the people who are facing the worst ever inflation and subsequent price -hike”.
Dr Waqar urged the economic policy makers to take every possible measure to extend social net to protect the pro poor and low income group in the challenging inflation.
Dr Amin Sajid , deputy executive director SDPI , argued that the next year budget shows many weak areas which were not cateted for in the budget document . He said the growth target of 5 percent may be hard to achieve by the governent when inflation and interest rates would be going up in the next fiscal . He claimed that Pakistan’,s inflation may go up to 16 % in 2022-23 and it may slow down businesses and economic activities in the next fiscal making hard for the government to get projected growth rate. He also questioned target of PDL revenue citing it as bit unrealistic . He argued that the government’s target of Rs 740 billion from PDL will force it to keep pushing prices of petroleum for public during next fiscal year.
He also suggested the government to pass on maximum protection to the deserving public to mitigate possible impact of high end petroleum products prices and at the same time upward revision in the utility bills.