Pakistan: Bilawal Bhutto assails PM Shehbaz Sharif’s Budget 2024-25 as `by the babus, of the babus and for the babus’,

“Without political inputs, the budget will by the babus, for the babus and of the babus. And we want to end this tradition. The ground realities that you (politicians across the board) know, none of the ‘babus’ in Islamabad knows about them,” Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chairman Bilawal Bhutto has said. Bhutto was speaking on the budget for the next financial year in the National Assembly which Federal Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb had presented some days ago.

The statement assumes significance as Bhutto’s PPP is an ally of the PML-N government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. However, the PPP has extended outside support to the government without taking any ministerial responsibilities. It has taken charge of some constitutional positions in the country though, like presidency and chairmanship of the Senate, according to some reports of The News International.

Bhutto’s criticism of the budget can create problems for the Sharif government as it does not have a majority to get it passed in either National Assembly or the Senate. So far, the PPP has been sending signals that it wants the budget to be modified as per the party’s suggestions. The Bilawal-led party, despite being a PML-N ally, has been consistent in raising objections regarding the federal budget for 2024-25 financial year starting July 1.

A politician would never suggest taxing milk or stationary in a country which had a 40% stunting rate (stunted growth among children) and where 26 million children were out of school. These suggestions, incorporated in the budget, would have come only from a “babu”, Bilawal said. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his team will hopefully be able to get Pakistan out of trouble, he said. “The government has managed to slightly decrease the inflation,” he acknowledged.

Even as the country continued to face economic crisis due to inflation, unemployment and poverty, these issues have been ignored in the budget, First Lady of Pakistan and PPP leader Aseefa Bhutto-Zardari has said. The budget 2024-25 did not address the core needs of the masses and failed to provide relief to them, Aseefa (Bilawal’s sister) said in her maiden speech in the National Assembly.

The people of Pakistan deserved a better financial plan amid economic challenges. Voicing PPP’s concerns regarding the federal budget, she said that the country was facing a challenging situation due to deteriorating economic indicators.

“Do the people of Pakistan deserve this anti-people budget,” she asked, adding that the all stakeholders must work together to help provide relief to the downtrodden segments of the society. The budget should have prioritised the welfare of farmers, labourers and the working class, and sought to lessen the gap of wealth and inequality, she stressed.

The PPP, an ally of the ruling party at the Centre, has expressed concerns with the government for not taking it into confidence regarding the Federal budget. The PPP and PML-N have been in talks over the budget but failed to resolve the issues so far. A couple of days ago, PPP Senator Shahadat Awan had demanded that the budget for financial year 2024-25 be revised. He had suggested that the government should get an administrative budget for two months approved and then take thorough revision as per his party’s demands.

“It is strange that the budget for such a big country is being passed in just 14 days. There would have been no issue in its passage in two weeks had the major parties been consulted before budget making,” he noted. The PML-N had taken a solo flight in preparing the budget, another PPP leader said adding his party was not consulted at all on the financial blueprint.