Chairman PPP demands resignation of Speaker, says fears of IMF dictated budget come true, puppet government had no justification to rule

Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar Spokesperson to Chairman PPP Mr Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has issued the following statement today.

“Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had decided along with other opposition parties to attend the National Assembly and listen to the budget speech with due attention today. This decision was taken despite the fact that the it was likely to be a IMF-imposed budget and despite witch hunting and a reign of terror let lose by the puppet government against the opposition leaders in the name of accountability. Chairman PPP was even ready to applaud the government if the budget turned out to be people friendly and provided the much needed relief to the people groaning under poverty, inflation and unemployment.

Copies of the budget speech were not provided to the opposition members and so the Chairman PPP had to sit to listen as the speech unfolded. When the part about taxation came the Chairman PPP was horrified that instead of providing relief a tsunami of taxes had been unleashed on the hapless people. It was clear that as a result of new taxation measures a number of enterprises  will find it difficult to do business and inflation and unemployment will further increase. The worst fears that it was going to be an IMF-dictated budget had come true.

The Spokesperson said that Mr. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari recalled that the government had made promises of providing 10 million jobs and five million houses but the taxation measures were not anywhere near to achieving the promised objectives. He also recalled that the Speaker National Assembly had failed to take notice of the attack on female members of the House recently.

Furthermore, production orders had not been issued for the elected members of the House from North and South Waziristan districts in KP province, from Benazirabad in Sindh and from Lahore to come to the House. Depriving them of the opportunity to represent their respective constituents at a time when plan for resource allocations and other measures was being presented in the National Parliament the Speaker has failed to act as a neutral custodian of the House, Senator Mustafa Khokhar quoted the Chairman PPP as saying.

Deeply concerned about the inability of the Speaker National Assembly to be a non partisan custodian of the House the Chairman PPP has reiterated his demand that the Speaker step down from his office as Speaker, Mustafa Khjokhar said.

Chairman PPP also is also gravely disappointed with the sheer ineptness and incompetence of the puppet government in preparing a people friendly budget and in taking a foreign dictated budget hook line and sinker. Chairman PPP further believes that the puppet government had totally lost even a shred of moral and political justification to continue in office that it may have had until now, the Spokesperson said

Chairman PPP demands once again that production orders be issued for former President Asif Ali Zardari and MNAs Ali Wazir, Mohsin Dawar and Khawaja Saad Rafique, the Spokesperson said.