Well, a third do more has been foisted on us. And quite unlike the previous two a political/military do more and the more recent cricketing one, courtesy an abrasive and clueless PCB chairman Ijaz Butt this economic/taxation do more may be even more intrusive and insulting as the earlier two, but it is something that may actually be a long-range blessing in disguise.
Weaned on foreign aid, and addicted to doles and handouts, our ruling elite and the privileged rentier class has been all too accustomed to make a round of the more well off capitals of the world with a begging bowl in hand, and collect charity, in whichever currency they could get it.
For the last sixty years or thereabouts, this had been going on. Our rapacious ruling classes kept getting richer while the poor remained as poor and as destitute as before.
The world had so far obliged the haves. It had its reasons, for the advantages of having a client state of our size, and our geography were myriad. For the affluent first world, the aid and grants thrown our way were mere crumbs any way.
The lay of the land, so to speak, is now a little different. The easy, no-questions-asked money is no longer there, even in the name of humanity and benevolence, as we found out twice during the 2005 earthquake and now the unprecedented floods that cut a swathe across the country.
These floods killed nearly two thousand people, destroyed nearly two million homes and displaced an estimated twenty million the destruction of their homes and crops leaving them with next to nothing. This is still not to mention the injured and those suffering from a variety of diseases.
The flood-affected have taken a massive hit, and so has the economy of a country that depended so hugely on agriculture. In this pall of gloom, the heartening thing is that the resilience of the people remains seemingly undimmed.
But despite such wrenching misery, and such dire need for succor, the repeated calls for aid by the UN and its allied agencies, as well as the Pakistan government have so far evoked a reluctant and tepid response.
This, and the 2008 shove by the euphemistically titled Friends of a Democratic Pakistan towards the IMF and the clutch of its conditionalities, should make us ponder, Why?
Here it is, though the order may be different to each according to ones preference.
a) We have exhausted our goodwill with the world due to our unfocussed leadership and our top, middle and lower tier bureaucracys wanton disregard for delivering the aid with some modicum of transparency and efficiency. That is why we are increasingly not trusted with aid in cash or kind, and the world drags its feet, until it finds an agency or a local NGO that it has confidence in.
b) The apathy of our government, right down the pecking order. First, our head of state made a major blunder in scooting off to inspect his ancestral chteau in the south of France at the height of floods. Next, our prime minister imposed a photo-op on Angelina Jolie who contributed $100,000 and who was here in the first place as the UN ambassador to make the world aware of the extent of the catastrophe and the suffering with his family flown in to Islamabad from Multan in his private jet. Jolies narration of the opulent prime ministers mansion, the grand feast itself and the needless waste, the shiny fleet of cars and the profligacy of expensive gifts bestowed on her makes it a read that fills one with feelings of disgust and shame.
Little wonder Jolies missive to the UN, according to some credible press reports, was phrased like this: ask the Pakistani government to cut down on its luxurious expenses before asking for aid from the world at large.
c) The world looks aghast, and rightly so at a country perpetually on the verge of default or bankruptcy that has a bloated federal cabinet of 41 ministers and 18 state ministers a possible dubious distinction for the Guinness Book of World Records.
d) As if that was not enough, a recent PILDAT survey reported that 25 cabinet ministers including the first among equals were innocent of any acquaintance with the Income Tax Department and had paid no taxes other than their mandatory salary deductions, despite their lavish life-styles, imported suits, shirts and footwear. The report also revealed that other than a few honourable exceptions, most of our representatives who believed in representation without taxation had sizable increase in their assets some to the extent of tripling them over the past three years.
In such a hostile environment where the purse-string states are increasingly demanding close monitoring and audit, and have even gone to the extent of suggesting, that the Pakistani elites, instead of gobbling up international aid, should start paying some meaningful taxes in real time.
A surprised Hilary Clinton added her powerful voice to the debate over the little matter of the present taxation culture and collection system in Pakistan by asking the rich to cough up their share.
Her words may have sounded cruel to our privileged classes, but to be fair Pakistans tax to GDP ratio at 10 per cent is one of the lowest in the world, and could easily be doubled if the tax-dodging ingenuity of the rich and of our indigenous corporate entities is countered with a collection system where incompetence and graft are replaced with efficiency and commitment.
The writer is Sports and Magazines Editor, Pakistan Today.
