PBF VP for spending certain tax amount on welfare of contributors

KARACHI: Vice President of Pakistan Businesses Forum (PBF) Ahmad Jawad said the country's tax collection is about Rs4800 billion and this collection comes from direct and indirect taxes without any doubt and people of Pakistan happily to contribute it for the country, even though the tax filing culture is not so popular.

However, there is no doubt increase in tax collection is still vital for the country and in this regard finance team is working on it; but here is a question; what benefit the Pakistanis get from this tax collection, because this amount is utilised for government expenses, for government official salaries and pensions, for the security propose, he said in a statement.

He continued this tax amount is also utilised for our armed forces so that we have a peaceful sleep, even to get justice this tax amount is utilised for the judiciary, but no tax amount is being utilised for the welfare of Pakistanis who are the contributors.

Unfortunately every Pakistani whether rich or poor, has to cater their needs for their own; no health facilities, no education facilities, and no insurance facilities are provided by the State, he said. Even to get the National Identity Card, we Pakistanis have to pay a certain amount to Nadra despite the fact that the country's constitution of 1973 has given us all basic rights but why Pakistanis are deprived of the basic facilities from the state in the last 74 years since it's inception, he asked.

The only thing we get from the state are the roads infrastructure which also not covering the whole country.

Ahmad Jawad said two days before he was hearing the speech of the Prime Minister Imran Khan where he described his performance of his government for last three years. He stated that we setup Kamayab Jawan program, Sehat Insaf Card, the country foreign reserves stood at the highest level of the country's history so on so far, but he failed to describe the basis issues of the common man with the due remedy.

He said Pakistanis need due respect when they visited the government departments for their issues, Pakistanis need respect when they visit the police stations, Pakistanis deserve that they at least purchase basic food commodities on the affordable prices; but in your 3 years delivery we don't see structural reforms in the government departments as well as in state owned enterprises; "you name it one".

Inflation is on the high side because we are depreciating the rupee deliberately on the wishes of IMF; regardless our fundamentals are now improving substantially, he said. If we didn't strengthen the rupee we can't control the inflation because it is inter-connected. "The last twenty two years were the worst for the Pakistani rupee; imported economic managers have picked the rupee on the rate of 40 and parked now at 166 which are very unfortunate". On August 1947 one dollar was equal to one rupee, he said.

Similarly, Pakistan's economic policies tend to be ineffective because they are divorced from the ground realities and considered exclusively in terms of supply. Additionally, policymakers are always on the lookout for imported ideas - which is not bad per se, but becomes problematic when domestic fundamentals are ignored. Being all ears to major donors and ignoring domestic research does not help either.

Good, effective policies will come by when both demand and supply fundamentals are thoroughly considered and the supporting material (good human capital, effective coordination, etc) are present, he said.

He said it high time to provide basic facilities to the people of Pakistan; the government officials needs to be act as the servant for the Pakistanis on the vision of Quaid; transparent accountability process should be there across the board. The state only gives us the pride of the freedom till date but in contrast Pakistanis paid a lot to the state in these years. He concluded.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021