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National Assembly set to vote on finance bill to meet IMF conditions

A National Assembly session to vote on the Finance (Supplementary) Bill, 2023, generally known as the mini-budget, is underway.

Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf is chairing the session.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar presented the bill in both houses of parliament on Wednesday as the government rushed to fulfil the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) conditions for the release of a desperately needed bailout.
The finance bill outlines tax measures to raise an additional Rs170 billion in the next four and half months to meet the last prior actions agreed upon with the IMF.

Discussing the finance bill in the session today, PPP’s Qadir Khan Mandokhail urged the government to decrease the burden on the poor and instead hike taxes on luxury cars and houses.Meanwhile, MQM-P’s Salahuddin criticised Dar for being “non-serious” about the difficult conditions the country was facing. “If we are allied with you today, it is only to prevent default and lift the country out of the economic crisis.“The rupee has depreciated; petrol, electricity and gas were already expensive. These bombs had already been dropped on the public. And then our finance minister dropped another bomb on Feb 15.”