Shehbaz Urges Govt To Withdraw Gas Price Hike

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Sep, 2018 ) :Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif Monday urged the government to withdraw gas price increase as it would directly affect the common people.

Initiating the debate on the amended Finance Bill 2018, he said the gas price hike would raise the inflation rate, which would directly hit the poor people and also the middle class. It was not expected from the finance minister as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government had promised to make a 'new Pakistan', he added.

He said the gas price raise would also increase the prices of fertilizer, electricity and other necessary commodities being used by the common men.

"Increasing tax on the poor is tantamount to their suppression," he added.

He said the government had failed to broaden the tax net and further burdened those, who were already paying the taxes. New indirect taxes of Rs 70 billion had been imposed by the government, he claimed.

He also criticized allowing non tax filers to purchase property and vehicles.

He said the amended finance bill was anti-people. The 'mini-budget' was a bomb for the poor, he added.

Shehbaz Sharif, who is also president of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, alleged that the PTI had no genuine public mandate to form the government as the elections were rigged.

The PTI government claimed that it had the best team but 'imported advisors' and 'friends' were seen at the helm of affairs, he added.

He said the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was a very important project for the 220 million people of Pakistan, who would never let it be adversely affected by wrong policies. They would protect the project like a 'China wall', he added.

The opposition leader claimed that the previous government had set up gas-fuelled power plants to generate 5,000MW energy. His party's government had given subsidy to farmers on tube wells and made the agriculture sector self-sufficient, he added.

Shehbaz said the PML-N government had handled two big challenges of power load-shedding and terrorism effectively.

He said the opposition parties welcomed constitution of a parliamentary commission to probe alleged irregularities in the last general election. They would fully cooperate with the commission, he added.

The opposition leader said no one could deny the importance of dams, but the government had not allocated any fund in that regard. He suggested that Rs 225 billion, which was slashed from the PSDP allocations by the government, should be diverted to the Diamer-Bhasha Dam project.

"We should not do politics on the water issue," he added.