A Review of Federal Budget 2017-18

Abstract

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made a record by becoming the first democratically-elected premier who has presented the fifth consecutive budget in a single tenure in the 70-year history of Pakistan. Although Pakistan People’s Party government also completed its five-year term, they had two prime ministers in that tenure. There were a lot of expectations from amongst the people as well as pressure within the party in the run-up to the election that the federal budget 2017-18 would be an election-friendly budget. After all this were to be the first independent budget presented by the PML-N government. The initial four budgets were prepared under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) program. Therefore, in those four budgets, the conditions imposed by the IMF framework took priority in the budget-making process.