ISLAMABAD: Parliamentary Secretary for Finance and Revenue Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan, claimed that no government in the history of Pakistan could have increased the tax collection by 80% in first four years of its tenure. Now the government is collecting taxes from the rich class of society and spending on the welfare of poor people.
“Historically, tax to GDP ratio has been low in Pakistan and we will higher it from 13.2% to 13.7%” Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan said in an exclusive interview with Customs Today here after presentation of federal budget before the National Assembly.
To a question about the allegation leveled by opposition that budget was not people friendly, Parliamentary Secretary said that allegations of the opposition parties were of traditional nature as no opposition had ever dared to declare budget presented by the government as people friendly.
However, he said that the government had presented its budget proposals before the parliament and these proposals would remain under discussion for next 17 days. Due course discussion, the government will incorporate appropriate and practical proposals and suggestions received from the opposition and even private sectors too” he added.
When asked to describe some of public interest and welfare natured points of the budget, he said that the most important and key point of the budget having the public welfare nature was an increase of around 20-22% in the allocations for monthly contribution for the poor people.
“Similarly, a record high increase around 50 % in allocations of Rs 47 billion for the Higher Education Commission has been made. Therefore, now the HEC will finance 1000 Ph.D scholars every year” he added.
“An amount of over Rs10 billion have been fixed as SDGs in health sector and this amount will be provided to all provinces. Same amount Rs10 billion has also been fixed for health insurance sector” he noted.
Moreover, he said that the government had fixed target of GDP growth 6%. Investment to GDP ratio will also be increased to 17% and inflation will be lowered than 6% for coming fiscal year. Budget deficit in the form of loans will be curtailed at 4% and 4% is an acceptable figure across the globe.
“The most welcoming development is that outlay of federal development is Rs 1001 billion; over Rs 400 billion will be spent on energy and power projects and over Rs400 billion will be spent on infrastructure related projects including roads, highways, motorways, railways, aviation and others” he maintained. Allocation for this sector has been higher up to 26% than the previous year which was Rs 851 billion.
He said that these allocations would be translated into jobs for common people. We expect improved rates of our exportable products like rice, textile and a few others. We will support exports and our imports have also increased and it is good development that imports of machinery have increased almost 40% which will play positive role in future economic uplift.
This year fund allocated for loans for farmers is Rs 800 billion; last year this allocation was Rs 700 billion” he said adding that this year the government had paid attention towards agricultural sector.
He expressed delightedness over the announcement regarding allocation of Rs 1000 billion for loans for agricultural sector because over 65% land farms were held by small farmer and small farmer was in difficulty in getting agricultural loan.
