Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Wednesday said that low-income salaried class is the ‘primary target’ of the national budget for the financial year 2021-22 as the budgetary document prepared by Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government contains some heavy taxes.
In a statement, he said that PPP will foil all attempts by the present government to suppress the common man through heavy taxation. He said as per the SPI Index, inflation rate in the country is already touching 20% mark. “And nothing would be harsher if in these circumstances, more taxes are levied on ordinary people,” he remarked. “Selected Prime Minister, by giving amnesties to the rich and burdening the poor and salaried class with taxes, is proving that he is anti-people,” he said. “PPP strongly rejects the plan to levy taxes on inflation-hit people in the PTI-IMF budget,” he added.
The PPP chairman was of the view that the more the present government is making tall claims about a marked improvement in the economy, the more unemployment is increasing in the country. Accusing the government of making the budget as per the wishes and dictation of the IMF, he asked Imran Khan as to where his financial team was he used to take pride on. He alleged that the ‘selected’ prime minister and his advisers had tampered with the figures to project economic growth. “By making wrong projections, you can earn praise from your cronies, but cannot dupe masses,” he added.
The PPP chairman said that the PTI government replaced the finance secretary a few days ahead of the budget in order to present its economic failures as economic prosperity. “Imran Khan can receive appreciation from his fans by manipulating the statistics regarding the economic progress but the public will not be fooled by these tactics,” he said, adding that the people will never forgive the PTI government for committing economic crimes one after another by presenting the most failed budgets of the history.
