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Summary
Minister for Finance and Revenue Hafeez Shaikh on Tuesday said that the people of Pakistan are centre and heart of the budget 2010-11 and the government tried to provide relief to the common man. He concluded the debate on Budget 2010-11 in the National Assembly today. The PML-N staged a walkout in todays budget session while Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf severely criticized Faisal Saleh Hayat. While addressing the budget session, Ashraf alleged that Hayat was propagating politics of allegations. He clarified that neither he nor his family has properties in foreign countries and said that the corruption allegations made by Hayat were baseless. He said if politicians were bad than journalists were no less. Chairman Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said that the PAC has deposited 400 billion rupees in the national treasury in the last two years. Ch. Nisar warned that he would leave his office if hurdles were created during the workings of the committee. He said the country is facing a financial crisis but the Federal Minister for Law Babar Awan was distributing money among lawyers. He said that son of an NA official was missing but no action was taken for his recovery. Babar Awan said the government wanted to further strengthen the PAC and clarified that he had not given a single penny to any lawyer. Speaker Fehmida Mirza said that no agency is allowed to arrest anybody and she urged the government to take notice of such incidents. Hafeez Shaikh said that since the budget was people-centric so there was no question of taking measures in the budget that would have inflationary impact. He said that no mystery was created in the budget and the figures presented were realistic to ensure transparency adding that the budget should be an open document so that the people discuss it at every forum. He said that it was the first budget after the 18th amendment and National Finance Commission (NFC) award; it would strengthen the provinces and protect the federation. It was no more a budget of bureaucracy, rather it was people centric, he added.
