ISLAMABAD: (APP) The National Assembly Wednesday passed the Finance Bill 2016-17, with certain amendments, providing legal cover to the budgetary proposals for the upcoming financial year with a total outlay of over Rs4.8 trillion.
Following a 15-day discussion, the bill moved by Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar was passed by the lower house of parliament with a majority in a clause-by-clause reading on Wednesday.
The opposition members presented certain amendments to the financial bill which were rejected with majority of votes. Those who proposed amended included Dr Nafeesa Shah, Dr Arif Alvi, Sahibzada Yaqub, Ayesha Sayed, Dr Mehreen Razzaq, Naveed Qamar, Dr Azra Fazal and others.
Minister for Law and Justice Zahid Hamid on behalf of Minister for Finance Mohammad Ishaq Dar moved amendments proposed to the Finance bill by the treasury benches in the House.
Amendment was also inserted in the finance bill to revise salaries of parliamentarians including Speaker, Deputy Speaker NA and Chairman and Deputy Chairman Senate through gazette notifications. As many as 86 out of 139
recommendations forwarded by the Senate for incorporation in the Finance Bill 2016-17 were approved by the house which is acceptance of 62 percent proposals.
The Bill 2016-17 would be effective from July 1 this year after President Mamnoon Hussain signs it.
Apart from passing budget, the lower house of the parliament also approved 112 supplementary grants worth Rs 260.875 billion for the outgoing fiscal year 2015-2016.
It is pertinent to mention here that the PML-N government on June 3, had presented the budget in the parliament with total outlay of Rs 4,894.9 billion, 10 percent higher than the previous budget of 2015-16.
According to the budget document, the resources availability during 2016-17 was estimated at Rs 4,442.0 billion against Rs 4,168.3 billion in the budget of 2015-16.
The net revenue receipt for 2016-17 had been estimated at Rs 2,779.7 billion indicating an increase of 12.8 percent over the budget estimates of 2015-16. The budget is focused on development agriculture and trade to promote growth and aims to develop energy sector besides maintaining fiscal discipline and reducing non-development expenditure.
Addressing the house Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that National Finance Commission Award has no direct relevance with the budget, saying that there has been progress to complete the NFC award as soon as possible.
He said that the provinces were not fulfilling their responsibility to cover the subjects that were devolved to them according to 18th amendment and that is’ why the federation has to intervene.
Withholding taxes could not be withdrawn Dar said and refuted the information that ratio of direct tax has reached to 85 percent and clarified that the direct taxation has increased from 38 percent to 42.4 percent.
The finance minister said sharing prosperity was the common narrative on the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and rejected all the misleading conceptions some quarters were propagating in this regard.
He said that it was our luck to have launched such projects, which would bring us closer to many Central Asian countries adding that Pakistan could not stop China from making investments in any other country.
He said that there is dire need that we make CPEC successful.
He said the decisions taken in All Parties Conference about CPEC would be implanted regarding the execution of projects. He said that FBR was renegotiating Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China expressing that better results would come out of it.
He said that we have been following to have membership of Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that would help us to have access to information.
"We are in final stages of getting the membership" he said adding that OECD authorities have informed us that when the Finance bill is approved, the OECD would be in better position to offer the membership. He said that the government accommodated majority of the Senate recommendations in the finance bill and the proposals by the National Assembly were also considered.