ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar failed on Wednesday to impress the Senate with his briefing on the country’s economy as members questioned the authenticity of official figures and said the ground reality belied the “rosy picture” painted by the minister.

Soon after the minister’s nearly hour-long emotional speech highlighting achievements of the PML-N government since coming to power in 2013, Leader of Opposition Aitzaz Ahsan indirectly challenged the figures presented in the house, saying that economic experts often used a term “fudging” for the official data. He said he could not deny the figures presented by Mr Dar out of the fear of being declared a “traitor”.

“Apparently it was a gimmickry of figures,” he said and requested the chair to fix a time for a debate on the minister’s briefing.

Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani, while directing the secretariat staff to circulate the minister’s speech verbatim to the members, said he would fix a day next week for the debate.

The most interesting and brief speech was delivered by Barrister Mohammad Ali Saif of the MQM. He said he had taken the floor only to congratulate the finance minister for making Pakistan an “economic superpower”.

Resolution pays tribute to Sharmeen

“All the country’s problems have been solved. Poverty has been eliminated. Loans have been paid back. I congratulate the minister,” the MQM senator said, taunting the minister.

Usman Kakar of the Pakhtunkhwa Mili Awami Party, a partner in the PML-N-led coalition government, said that there seemed to be two “Pakistans” – one comprising 10 to 15 developed districts and the other presenting the picture of Ethopia.

He said that 70 per cent population of Balochistan was living below the poverty line and there were areas where people were facing 20 hours of loadshedding.

Mr Kakar said that only big investors and the people of central Punjab were happy with the government’s economic policies. He called for paying attention to less-developed backward areas of Fata, Sindh, South Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Seher Kamran of the PPP said the government was bent upon selling institutions under the IMF pressure. She said the finance minister had made a “very beautiful presentation”, but the fact was that tax base was not increasing, but unemployment. “There is nothing on ground. The plans seem to be in papers only,” she added.

Earlier, briefing the house on “public debt and economy”, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar claimed that the present government had put the economy on the right track. He said the provision of funds for the Zarb-i-Azb military operation and temporarily displaced persons would remain top priority of the government since elimination of extremism was a must for economic development of the country. He termed terrorism and energy shortage the biggest crises the country had been facing.

Giving figures to prove his claims, the minister said the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had collected Rs1,593.5 billion during the first seven months of the current fiscal year against Rs1,345.3bn during the same period last year. He expressed the hope that the FBR would be able to collect over Rs3,000bn by the end of the fiscal year.

Mr Dar also claimed that the budget deficit had come down to 1.8pc from last year’s 2.3pc. He said overseas Pakistanis had sent remittances worth $11.2bn over the past seven months, which was 6pc higher than the same period last year.

He admitted that there had been an 11pc decline in exports, but said foreign investment had increased to $647.9bn from $619.6bn.

The minister claimed that inflation, which was 5.45pc last year, had come down to 2.48pc, expressing the hope that it would remain below 4pc throughout the year. He said the total debt of the country till Dec 2015 stood at Rs18,467bn – Rs5,599bn external and Rs12,870bn domestic debt.

RESOLUTION: The Senate unanimously passed a resolution paying tribute to Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy for winning the second Oscar Award for her short documentary highlighting the issue of honour killings in Pakistan.

Besides “congratulating” Ms Chinoy for her achievement, the house through the resolution also “saluted all those brave women rights activists of political parties, civil society and NGOs who have made great contributions on women issues, rights and development by highlighting its causes and solutions thereof”.

The resolution was presented by MQM’s Nasreen Jalil.

On Tuesday, Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani had stopped Ms Jalil from presenting the resolution, asking her to include in it the names of those women activists who had faced police brutalities during their struggle to highlight the issue of honour killings.

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2016