Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) launched a blistering broadside against the federal budget in the Senate on Tuesday, with the party's parliamentary leader Barrister Syed Ali Zafar dismissing the government's fiscal plan as a "budget of broken promises" riddled with what he called "eleven deadly sins" and incapable of delivering either public relief or sustainable economic growth.
Opening a wide-ranging critique of the FY2026-27 budget, Zafar argued that every budget should serve two fundamental purposes: improving the lives of ordinary citizens and laying the groundwork for long-term growth and employment. He maintained that the government's latest financial blueprint had missed both targets, accusing it of offering neither meaningful relief to struggling households nor a credible strategy to revive the economy.
"Unfortunately, this budget fails to achieve either objective. It neither provides meaningful relief to the common citizen nor sets out a credible long-term plan for economic development and job creation," he told the Senate.
The PTI senator said the government had ignored eleven critical areas that should have formed the backbone of a serious economic agenda. These included a long-term growth strategy, industrialisation policy, agricultural reforms despite rising imports of cotton, wheat and sugar, export promotion, youth employment, expansion of the information technology sector, a solution to circular debt, a coherent energy policy, investment in dams and water conservation amid growing pressure on the Jhelum and Chenab rivers, climate change, population growth management and education.
Turning to the education sector, Zafar said: "Education is the foundation of progress and prosperity, yet the government appears to have neglected it entirely. It is as though the government does not wish to spread the light of knowledge among the people but is instead content to leave them in the darkness of ignorance," he said.
He accused successive governments of relying on short-term fixes rather than tackling structural weaknesses in the economy.
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