ISLAMABAD, Jun 14 (APP):Member of National Assembly (MNA), Syed Javed Hasnain Wednesday emphasized the need to empower Parliament and give it a substantial role in the budget-making process rather than solely seeking its formal approval.
Speaking during his budget speech in the National Assembly, the MNA asserted to consider Parliament as supreme and its involvement in the budget preparation should be significant.
He expressed concern that certain entities tend to dominate the decision-making process, undermining the role of the National Assembly in budget formulation.
Syed Javed Hasnain stressed the importance of upholding the supremacy of Parliament by ensuring its more involvement in budget making process.
He said the government of Punjab had granted up to a 150 percent allowance to its engineers and similar policy had also been implemented by high-ranking officials for themselves in Islamabad.
However, he pointed out that some engineers in Islamabad were not getting this allowance.
As a member of the Government Assurance Committee, Syed Javed Hasnain drew attention to the non-payment of honorarium to government employees who served during the budget session.
The MNA cited the Islamabad police, Capital Development Authority, and attached departments of the Ministry of Interior as examples of departments where employees had not received this honorarium.
Expressing gratitude to the Minister for Finance for acknowledging agriculture as the backbone of the country’s economy and providing incentives for the agricultural sector, Syed Javed Hasnain emphasized the need to attract investment in the tractor industry to break the monopoly of two companies.
He argued that such investment would reduce tractor prices, which were currently unaffordable for farmers.
Highlighting Pakistan’s annual import of edible oil worth 4-6 billion dollars, Syed Javed Hasnain proposed providing incentives to farmers for oilseed production and ensuring timely payments by oil mills.
He suggested that the government should introduce a direct subsidy system, where subsidized prices were clearly mentioned on the fertilizer bags instead of using coupons, considering that the majority of farmers were illiterate and may faced difficulties in redeeming the coupons.
Syed Javed Hasnain also recommended the government to encourage farmers towards adopting solar systems for their tube wells which would ultimately reduce electricity consumption and lower crop production costs.
Additionally, he proposed providing short-term loans to farmers at 7-8 percent markup and implementing effective measures to increase per-yield production.