Relief for Govt employees in budget: Naveed
By Khalid Amin

ISLAMABAD—Minister for Ports, Shipping, Investment and Privatization, Syed Naveed Qamar Wednesday said the government would provide relief to government employees as well as the poorest in the country in forthcoming budget.
“The government is cognizant of the problems of the poorest and the government employees and would provide them relief in next budget,” he informed the Senate, winding up debate on price-hike.
“We as a government are always ready to sit with the members for suggestions to provide short, mid and long term relief to the suffering masses,” he added.
Naveed Qamar vowed to do away with the blame game and start afresh. “It is our primary duty to establish responsibilities. Let us start with a clean slate - until and unless we do not start, we would continue going round and round.” He defined the present situation as ‘not sustainable for the government and the people’ and urged, “we need to put our heads together to tackle the problem of food shortage and price-hike.”
He said the budget figures presented last year were distorted and fiscal deficit has forced the present government to borrow. “Instead of announcing taxes, the previous government allowed inflation and the poor were hurt much,” he said. Elaborating the measures, he hinted at cutting the government expenditure and bring down the fiscal deficit from existing 8.5% to five per cent and further decrease it in next year.
He said the deficit would force the government to go for taxation and both the government and the people would collectively have to share the burden.
He said being an agricultural country we are importing food items instead of exporting and need to completely focus the agricultural sector. “We would make agricultural sector vibrant instead of merely focussing on development of the services sector. For this we will have to ensure timely availability of agricultural inputs and timely announcement of support prices,” he added. He said the government will have to introduce latest technologies and better seeds to enhance productivity as well as fix the prices of commodities.
The government, Naveed Qamar said, has already decided to import 2.5 million tonne wheat. “It is bad news for the hoarders. The government is serious in it and would not allow the wheat price to go higher.”
He said action is already underway against smugglers and inter-district and inter-provincial wheat movement will be allowed once borders are secure and chances of smuggling are eliminated. The government is also ensuring availability of rice within the country, he said, the same time ensuring that exports are also not affected.
“We do not want to lose foreign markets by banning rice export but would ensure availability within the country as well as exports,” he said, the rice producers and exporters have agreed to provide 200,000 tonne rice to utility stores.
He said the sugar price has recorded decline and the government would ensure availability of sugar, timely crushing of sugarcane and timely payments to growers. Naveed Qamar said the government has announced Rs 1500 increase in minimum wages to provide relief to labour class. “We would also provide relief to other segments also to dissolve the impact of global price-hike of food items,” he added.
He also mentioned to 1994 projects in power sector and said, had there not been these projects the power crisis would have been severer. “We hope to overcome power shortage dilemma shortly. When people talk of years, we talk of months,” he said.
The minister described oil price-hike as one of the reasons for decline in rupee value and urged to avoid speculation as “speculations add to the miseries of masses.”
“We shall have to show responsibility when talking about reserves and stock market. Let me assure you to improve reserves by the end of current year to the level of corresponding period last year,” he added.
“The government has already taken steps for US$ three billions for the reserves and one billion more would be added by the end of current year,” he said.
He pointed out to stabilize the utility store items prices at a level where the hoarders or black marketers do not take benefit.
“We would have to decide if the subsidy should continue at the cost of development. The choice is with us and the choice is with the nation,” he said.
He mentioned that the government would be providing Rs 150 billion subsidy on food items as it is cognizant to the problems and is committed to sustainability and poverty reduction.