Opposition parties in Pak flay new budget

The parties flayed the government for spending more on military, while reducing allocations for development projects.

Pakistan opposition parties on Tuesday dubbed the new budget as "anti-people" and flayed the government for spending more on military while reducing allocations for development projects.

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The opposition parties, who staged a walkout from both houses of the Parliament on Monday to protest against the alleged leak of the budget to TV channels, said the defence expenditure has exceeded the development expenditure for the first time.

"The worrying proposition from peoples point of view was that the defence expenditure has surpassed the development expenditure for the first time," the spokesman of former Premier Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party said.

While this year's defence expenditure grew from Rs 223 billion to Rs 241 billion, the Public Sector Development projects allocations has come down from Rs 272 to Rs 228 which pointed out that the defence spending has over taken the development projects, Farhutulla Babar said.

In the budget presented on Monday, defence allocation has been increased from Rs 223.1 to 250 billion.

"The PPP rejects the new budget as no more than a public relations stunt to cover up the dismal economic situation on the one hand and a brazen attempt to strengthen the ruling elite at the expense of the poor and downtrodden on the other," he said.