PMLN president and Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif Saturday strongly criticised the budget 2020-2021 for ignoring essential and public relief sectors.

Shehbaz said the budget holds nothing for the poor and working class.

“Where are the development spending and the PSDP which is supposed to generate employment and progress,” he questioned.

He said an increase in the PSDP and development spending was crucial to reduce unemployment and poverty in the country.

The opposition leader pointed out that after slashing published sector development programmes in its first budget, the PTI government has further reduced it by Rs150billion from Rs701billion to Rs650billion and the public safety net programmes too have been cut from Rs245billion to Rs230b.

He said when the country is battling a pandemic a cut in public safety net spending does not make any sense.

He warned that the coming year will be even more financially difficult and tough.

“The government is claiming it will collect Rs1050billion through taxes but has not shared how it will achieve that steep target. I'm warning the nation once again that a mini-budget by this government is inevitable," he said.

Shehbaz said the dent if 6.9 percent in cotton production means textile exports will also dip.

“On the other hand large scale manufacturing has fallen by 7.8 percent but the government has announced no measures to address these issues.”

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