| Glancing at the Federal Budget for 1993-94 (and some day the document deserves no more than a single glance), one would be forgiven for assuming that it has been scribbled hurriedly on the back of a grease-stained envelope, from dictation taken from a haulage contractor in Karachi’s Kharadar colony or a luxury car importer off Lahore’s Fatima Jinnah Road. The 1993-94 Federal Budget can be summed up in one word: Transport. It is about motorways, highways, cars, tyres and petrol. It is a budget for the upper class motorized haves at the expense of the plebeian pedestrian have-nots. |
| It would be difficult to find a statement of fiscal policy by any Government claiming to be a populist one, which has been in power for over two and a half years, revived by a Supreme Court, reinstated with a vote of confidence by a National Assembly to rule for another two and a half years, which could have so callously ignored the needs and plight of 120 million Pakistanis. [EXTRACT] |
| Published in THE NATION 24 June 1993, and reprinted in THE ARMLESS QUEEN (1994). |
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