22.06.2013 Another bailout?
As the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) begin, the bureaucrats in the finance ministry appear rather comfortable that they will be able to secure a loan from the Washington-based lender on relatively favourable terms. They would do well to revise those estimations. The IMF is supremely annoyed at the incompetence and dishonesty of the previous administration in fulfilling the promises it made with regards to bringing its financial house in order. The IMF’s board of directors is unlikely to be quite so kind this time around — particularly with European nations needing far more assistance than in 2008 — as compared with the last time Pakistan got a bailout.
Negotiations with the IMF often tend to be somewhat uncomfortable moments for the government since it is the only institution to publicly question the pie-in-the-sky assumptions about revenues. For instance, for the past seven years in a row, the federal government has been listing $800 million from Etisalat as revenue expected in the coming year, on account of the $2.6 billion acquisition of its management control in the Pakistan Telecommunications Company. The previous government had been doing so without doing anything to resolve the differences between it and Etisalat that caused that amount to be withheld in the first place.
In addition, for four years, the government has been assuming close to $1 billion in revenue from auctioning 3G mobile telecommunications spectrum in the country, again without having done any homework on actually making that auction a reality. It would have been embarrassing enough had it just been the IMF pointing out these mistakes but, they are so obvious and have been made so often that now, even the Senate finance committee has asked the government to stop deluding itself that this money will ever come in its coffers and come up with a budget that relies on more realistic expectations of revenue.
We would go one step further and argue that the government should stop overtaxing sectors that it finds easiest to tax. Why, for instance, is the telecommunications sector taxed so heavily and the export-oriented textile sector left completely untaxed? It is an unfairness that needs to be addressed.
Dangerous statements
That extremism and a radical mindset, as well as a disregard for the norms of justice, have seeped deeply into our society is something that has been quite apparent for a long time now. But to see its manifestation in the form of an elected parliamentarian demanding the release of a convicted murderer is highly deplorable and shocking. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNA from Mardan, Mujahid Ali, has stoked huge controversy after demanding on the floor of the National Assembly, the release of Mumtaz Qadri, who shot dead the former governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer, for his apparent opposition to the country’s blasphemy laws. Qadri was later sentenced to death for his gruesome act.
Although the PTI later dissociated itself from Mr Ali’s statement, calling it an individual act and not reflective of the party’s policy, the matter simply cannot be allowed to rest at that as this comes from someone, who is in a position to influence the kind of laws that enter our statute books, and ultimately, the course the country takes. PTI leader, Arif Alvi’s clarification, that “the party’s policy will remain under the country’s law and the Constitution” is kind of meaningless as it clearly had no influence on Mr Ali, who had no trouble in expressing a view that was in contradiction to the PTI’s policy.
One cannot help but refer to the ruckus that was created after Javed Hashmi famously declared at the inauguration of the new parliament that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is and will remain his leader. He was eventually forced to retract his statement. If such a hue and cry can be raised over a harmless statement like that of Mr Hashmi’s, and if a leader of his stature does not have a problem withdrawing it, then the party must demand a similar retraction from Mr Ali, who has ignored all norms of justice in airing such views. If Mr Ali fails to retract his statement, then the PTI should initiate disciplinary action against him. It should not be this easy for our lawmakers to condone, directly or indirectly, the acts of convicted criminals.