The PPP has certainly delivered to its constituency. It has undergone a transformation from being a party committed to serve the poor to a party whose sole objective is to look after powerful agriculturists and sugar barons who monopolise their elected MNAs, MPAs and Senators.
During their four year uninterrupted rule, they raised the support price of all agriculture items to that prevailing in international market, without raising the daily/ monthly wages of haris or labourers that work for landlords. This was a bonanza for the powerful lobby with large land holdings whose income was already tax free. This provided a window for big industrialists to claim tax evasion by claiming their earnings to be from land purchased for this purpose only.
As if this was not enough, the state provided relief costing the tax payer Rs75 Billion annually in subsidy for fertilisers, used by small and big landlords. The affluence of land owning agriculturists can be gauged by the mad rush for imported expensive SUV for the large majority who still live near their farmhouses and BMW7 series or latest Mercedes for the more trendy landlords that prefer to live in cities.
This policy has made life a living hell for the masses who can no longer afford to eat two meals a day, given the fact that cost of all basic food items had risen by 75 to 100% in past four years. So committed was PPP government to better fortunes of the agriculture lobby that they ignored issues like affordable electric power generation, health, education and security of life and private property. This policy has bore dividends for big landlords, while the small peasants owning few acres were crippled because cost of other items that they had to buy from market had escalated astronomically, while their agriculture produce was barely sufficient to meet their own needs, with not enough left to sell for ready cash.
Millions have joined the growing numbers of unemployed, with factories being shut down due crippling electric shortages. Today, a vast majority of the population living in cities, towns and villages that sought employment in cottage industries, factories and business houses is unemployed, with no state subsidised health or education for their children and clean drinking water.
MALIK TARIQ ALI
Lahore
This PPP has nothing in common with the party founded by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. They have made life a living misery and hell for the poor. It is anti-people party committed to serve feudals of this country with no respect for law, nor any plans to recover taxes from the rich. This is a party committed to loot and plunder and taking this country into dark ages with no electricity, nor security of life or property.
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