PML-N has no right to present budget for full fiscal year: Bilawal

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Wednesday criticised the ruling PML-N for its decision to present the budget for the next fiscal year before the general elections expected in July this year.

Calling it “pre-election rigging”, the PPP chairman said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has no right to present the new budget for the entire fiscal year.

“The new budget is the right of the new government that forms after the elections,” he said while addressing media in Islamabad earlier today. "By presenting the entire budget PML-N is usurping the rights of the new government and parliament."

The PML-N should only present the budget for the next few months, he advised.

Bilawal also slammed the PML-N’s “respect the vote” slogan as being “pointless and meaningless”.

"PML-N's politics of [confrontation and blame game] is not in the wider interests of the nation," he said.

The federal government and provinces are at odds over the development budget, with differences between the two sides resulting in a walkout by the chief ministers of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan at a meeting of the National Economic Council on Tuesday.

Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah, after the meeting, alleged that the federal government had been taking unconstitutional measures and said that the ministers recorded their reservations over new development schemes.

The incumbent government would complete its term in May and it could not design the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the next fiscal year, he pointed out.

Shah said that Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi wanted to "forcefully" get an approval for the summary. If the PSDP for the next fiscal year was approved after they left the meeting, then it would be "illegal," he remarked.