Islamabad:
The legislators of the upper chamber called on Tuesday to grant more relief to the ordinary man and underlined the need to face the increase in poverty, national debt, agricultural decline and institutional ineffectiveness while reaffirming their support for national defense and unity in the face of regional challenges.
While participating in the general discussion on the 2025-26 budget, Senator Kamran Murtaza said that during each budget exercise, two types of approaches emerge – one focused on ideological vision and the other aimed at immediate public aid.
He stressed that the main challenge of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balutchistan remains the situation of public order, which requires concrete and supported measures.
“We are united to our armed forces and remain faithful to the country,” he said.
Stressing socio-economic concerns, Senator Murtaza said that almost half of the population is confronted with extreme poverty and that it does not have access to essential articles such as food and medicine.
He underlined the need to tackle the overcrowding judiciously and called to empower young people thanks to technical education and the development of skills.
He criticized the budget, citing a drop in crop yields and the deterioration of the state of agriculture. “Farmers have trouble and taxes are taken from those who are already overwhelmed,” he said. He urged the government to examine its policies and relieve disadvantaged people.
Senator Saadia Abbasi has also expressed reserves on the federal budget, declaring that the country faces a multitude of challenges, including commercial imbalances, impacts on climate change on agriculture, inadequate infrastructure reforms, poorly managed debt and stagnated industrial growth.
Meanwhile, the debate on the budget proposed by Pakistan for the next financial year in the National Assembly was intensified on Tuesday while tensions extended between the members of the PPP and the MQM.
Shazia Marri, of PPP, in his speech, was criticized for the government’s failure to announce a minimum wage for workers and called for a reasonable increase in wages of government employees.
His speech took an unexpected turn when a heated exchange broke out between the PPP and MQM members, degenerating tensions in the assembly.
While Shazia stressed the importance that Karachi remained an integral part of the Sindh, Asiya Ishaq of MQM approached the members of the PPP, leading to an intervention by Asefa Bhutto, Sahar Kamran and others.
This led to a tight exchange of hard words between the two parties. Javed Hanif pointed out: “You have abandoned Karachi, and now you threaten us.”
