Disparity at its worst

FOR an ordinary citizen, survival in Pakistan has become a task that is all but impossible. The current budget has ruthlessly pushed the struggling masses to the brink with taxes. As if that was not enough, they have been bombarded with severely high electricity and gas bills. Despite the various claims by government functionaries about inflation having been controlled, one has to simply take a round of the market — any market across the land — to know beyond doubt or debate the actual inflationary pressures the masses are being forced to put up with. This is how the state is exploiting the hard-earned money of salaried-class and daily wagers. Unfortunately, the finance minister has nothing to offer except some words of ‘sympathy’.
The unfair imposition of taxes on different classes that exempt the elite has only added to the misery of the people. There is darkness all around.
Unlike Scandinavian countries where tax amount is utilised efficiently for providing better public service delivery, in Pakistan it is used to further facilitate the elite in all possible ways. It usually gives rise to only two classes in a country; the richest and the poorest. On the basis of historical evidence, such a biased class system should have translated into a bloody revolution by now, but the people in their current state of mind are not even capable of taking such an initiative.
What the situation has resulted in Pakistan is a spike in crime rate. Both the criminal and the victim happen to be from the same class, leaving the elite to continue having their usual fun. All this adds to the country’s problems because the rising crime rate tarnishes the image
of the country abroad. To drag the people out of the rubble, policymakers must focus on home-grown structural reforms, taking measures on an urgent basis to ensure fair circulation of money.
Khadija Tayyab
Gojra
Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2024