No allocation made for corona relief package in budget: Shahid Khaqan Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) senior vice president Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has criticised the federal government for not making any allocation for corona relief package in the budget 2020-21, ARY News reported on Friday.

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, while talking exclusively to ARY News, claimed that the new budget was completely based on lies. He said that the government is fully aware of not having any revenue but it is deceiving itself by showing 2.1 per cent growth. Several countries including Pakistan were facing economic crisis due to coronavirus.

The PML-N politician said that the reality of the budget will come forth in the next three months. He alleged that the present government failed to run the national economy which could be compared with the previous budget.

He censured the federal government over imposition of additional tax in term of petroleum levy and Rs200 billion will be collected from the nationals.

“The PML-N government had increased the growth rate up to 5.8 per cent during its tenure. The mark-up stood at Rs1,700 billion in the last year of the previous government which is now raised to Rs3,000 billion.”

The politician agreed that the PML-N government had failed to bring reformations in some sectors, however, the previous government had completed various mega projects after acquiring loans.

Abbasi advised the federal authorities to increase spendings on infrastructure as no investment will be made in this year.

He was of the view that it is necessary to end the power of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to regain the confidence of the investors.