Rawalpindi:
Various employee and retirees associations, including All Pakistan Clerks Association (APCA), all employees of the Grand Alliance Government (AGEGA), the union of rail workers, the Union of Punjab teachers, the Educators Association and the Railway Prenders Association, rejected the new federal budget, the label as a “traditional charade of words”. They warn that the budget will lead to a stormy increase in inflation, pushing 50% of families below the poverty line.
Managers condemned the simple 10% increase in wages as “insignificant and shameful”, predicting an increase in suicides and famine. They said that pensions reforms had families of “buried” retirees.
Shehzad Manzoor Kiyani, Central Vice-President of the APCA, and Divisional President Chaudhry Mubashir said that the budget was a “severe joke” on government employees. They underlined the striking contrast with significant salary increases for members of assemblies and ministers, while employees are “buried alive”. The elimination of ministries, divisions, institutions and 40,000 positions will devastate low -income segments.
Muhammad Shafiq Bhalwalia, Secretary General of the Association of Education Retirees, called on the minimum salary increase for teachers, employees and retirees in the middle of “ridiculous “in inflation. He stressed that ministers, members of the assembly, senators, advisers, the president of the Senate and the speakers of assemblies experienced a gradual increase of 650% of their wages before the budget.
It argued that a comparison between the budget files of 2024-2025 and the uncontrolled increase in the privileges and wages of the ruling class proves that this budget is pro-router but certainly not pro-employee or retired. He added that pensions reforms destroy the future of employees, pushing them in the abyss of poverty.
Moubarak Hussain, central secretary general of the rail workers’ union, said the budget was designed to benefit the Government friends, the commercial class and the commercial class collecting all the advantages of tax reductions. He accused the government of promoting its political and commercial fraternity, qualifying the increase in the salary of 10% of “scrap” and that the pension of 7% increases a “mockery”, similar to the granting of poison to retirees.
He said that the government extracted 600 billion of employee tax rupees without providing any advantage, while those who pay 8 billion tax rupees benefit from advantages throughout the year. He demanded an abolition of the wage tax for employees earning 600,000 rupees at RS1.2 million, and that the tax collection of those from the 17th to 22 years should only be 10%. He noted that no tax had been imposed on the wages of the members of the Parliament, senators and members of the National Assembly, which suggests that a 25% tax should be collected on them.
Rana Liaquat and Basharat Iqbal Raja, leaders of the Punjab Teachers Union and Educators Association, said that the government had treated public institutions as a “widow” and employees as “widows”, leading to a complete loss of confidence in the current administration.
