Rangers’ stay in Karachi extended
THE renewal of the Sindh Rangers’ mandate to stay in Karachi has rarely made the news.
That wasn’t surprising, considering that the paramilitary force — whose mandate can be extended for a maximum of four months — has been deployed in Karachi since 1989, in some capacity or the other, to assist the city police in maintaining law and order.
But what was routine once is no longer so, since the Rangers — who were given special powers of policing and arrest in late 2013 — have turned their guns, so to speak, on individuals in the provincial government for their purported misdeeds. That would explain Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah’s eleventh-hour recollection about constitutional requirements that needed to be met following the 18th Amendment, which incidentally was passed in April 2010, for extending the Rangers’ law-enforcement mandate in Karachi.
In any event, after some hemming and hawing, the extension has been granted, albeit for one month.
It was not an unexpected outcome, given the army’s support for the Rangers-led operation in Karachi and, apparently, all that it entails. This was underscored by the corps commander Karachi’s high-profile visit to the force’s headquarters in the city and his appreciation of its actions just three days after a Rangers’ contingent raided the Sindh Building Control Authority’s offices. For a provincial dispensation that along with its erstwhile partner in government, the MQM, increasingly perceives the Rangers’ actions as being carried out with overtly political, security establishment-approved objectives — with some justification, we might add — the SBCA raid was the last straw. It provoked the normally restrained Asif Zardari to lash out against the military, and prompted the chief minister to accuse the Rangers of overstepping their mandate. Strictly speaking, Mr Shah is not far off the mark.
Corruption of the kind that the paramilitary force has now turned its attention to falls more in the domain of whitecollar crime, and while the latter may have an undesirable knock-on effect it cannot in itself be defined as terrorism. And it was to act against terrorism in Karachi that the Rangers’ powers were enhanced. That said, it does not mean that corruption in high places and abuse of power should not be investigated and prosecuted. The Sindh government — even in a country where patronage-based politics is the norm — is largely seen as the most brazenly self-serving and corrupt of the provincial dispensations. The corollary to this is a thoroughly politicised police force that has been fashioned to serve the rulers rather than the ruled.
The question, therefore, is who is going to undertake the cleaning of the stables? There is good reason why the Sindh government’s tribulations are being met by the public with either indifference or outright support for the Rangers’ actions. It is thus that the politicians compromise themselves, and undermine democracy in the process.
Withholding tax
AS expected, the government has reached a compromise with the traders’ community on the question of a new withholding tax on all bank transactions by non-filers of tax returns. In a large meeting held at the FBR headquarters in Islamabad, representatives of trade bodies from around the country urged the finance minister to withdraw a withholding tax of 0.6pc being charged from non-filers on all bank transactions, whether through paper or electronic instruments. A compromise was struck between the government and the assembled delegates at the meeting. It involves reducing the amount of tax deduction to 0.3pc via an ordinance. In return, the traders will be required to file their returns in the period the ordinance remains in force. If the government feels at the end of the 90-day period during which the ordinance remains in force that the number of returns filed is satisfactory, it will renew the ordinance. Otherwise, it will lapse and the tax will revert to 0.6pc.
The good news here is that the measure itself remains in place, although some scope exists for softening the impact of the withholding tax on those who are inadvertently caught up in it, such as pensioners and students. This measure is exactly the sort of approach that is needed to encourage a culture of tax filing, something that is sorely needed in this country where only 0.9 million people filed their returns last year, and out of 64,000 registered businesses, only 15,000 filed by the deadline. In addition, there is the widespread misuse of bank accounts, where personal and benami accounts are used to conduct business transactions. The scope for additional revenue from registered corporates is very large, and it is important to pursue it through measures that are tough but not coercive. This withholding tax draws that balance appropriately. Having struck a deal with the traders to encourage compliance, the government should now set the bar high. If the delegates gathered at the FBR for the meeting on Wednesday wish to claim that they represent the will of a large number of traders, then they should be required to generate tax returns in the next 90 days on an equally large scale. The government should lay down a target for them, and set it very high, and demand that if returns equal to the target are not filed, the ordinance will be allowed to lapse.*
Lack of evidence?
PERHAPS one of the main reasons why militancy continues to thrive in Pakistan is that the government refuses to emerge from its state of denial where certain extremist outfits are concerned. The remarks made by Minister for States and Frontier Regions Abdul Qadir Baloch in the Senate on Tuesday are a reflection of this. Mr Baloch said that as there was no evidence to link Jamaatud Dawa with Lashkar-e-Taiba, it would not be possible to proscribe the former, which he termed a ‘charity’ outfit. The statement seems to echo the ‘good militant, bad militant’ line apparently pursued by Pakistan’s security establishment. While the minister is yet to discover any solid evidence, and while JuD chief Hafiz Saeed may deny all links, the fact is that Jamaatud Dawa and LeT enjoy a symbiotic relationship. After the latter was banned in 2002, it began operating under the JuD moniker — itself a new take on Jamaatud Dawa wal Irshad formed in the 1980s at the height of the Afghan jihad. Hafiz Saeed was a key figure in LeT and it is no coincidence that both groups’ infrastructure and memberships overlap. The minister’s remarks in the Senate point to the persistent problem of militant groups rebranding themselves after proscription and carrying on as usual.
This phenomenon is not limited to JuDeT. Jaish-eMohammad, Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan and Tehreek-iJafariya Pakistan — all supposedly banned— have renamed themselves after proscription. Only the names have changed; the leaderships, infrastructure and activities remain the same. The problem is that despite much outrage, especially after the APS Peshawar tragedy, we do not have a comprehensive counterterrorism plan to neutralise militant actors. Confronting the militants on the battlefield is one option, but to crack down on groups active in the cities, the best course is to build cases against leaders and workers of militant groups, freeze their funds and prevent them from carrying out propaganda activities, not merely ‘ban’ them. Unless the National Action Plan is recalibrated towards fully neutralising militant groups our counterterrorism efforts will continue to deliver unsatisfactory results.
Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2015
http://www.dawn.com/newspaper/editorial