Hitting the nail on its head
The PTI chief has long been obsessed with the idea that the PPP and the PML-N are covert collaborators in each other’s alleged illegalities and self-serving policies. In a press conference Friday, he spoke on this and other subjects relating to revenue generation which are causing the present state of national political, economic and social paralysis. His opening salvo was on his pet theme: the two majority parties are scratching each other’s back by appointing a mutually acceptable NAB chief and reaching an underhand deal on the new Public Accounts Committee chairman. It would appear that he would not mind at all stepping into Syed Khursheed Shah’s shoes, if he could only get his numbers right. That cannot happen without the MQM’s support, which is already talking to the PPP for joining the Sindh cabinet. So the sight of the tenacious bulldog grappling with the tame watchdog in the NA seems highly unlikely.
But the other matters Imran touched upon hit their mark. His sarcastic reference of the PML-N as ‘a rich man’s club’ was not amiss, considering the business community to be the party’s main constituency. His seven point formula would find a ready acceptance with the vast suffering majority: nabbing tax evaders by bringing the promised millions into the tax net to generate about Rs300 billion; plugging 35 percent sales tax evasion to yield another Rs250 billion; taxing agriculture and real estate sectors; imposing taxes on capital gains, property and the stock market; eliminating gas and electricity theft; bringing back all the looted money and ending of the money whitening schemes.
Particularly critical of the hike in the gas and electricity prices which had fuelled countrywide inflation, with middle and poor classes hit the hardest, Imran called for their withdrawal despite these were the IMF conditionalities, and promised a campaign in the Punjab from November 1. Imran’s emphasis on the vast gulf and brutal inequity between the filthy rich and the unjustly taxed poor would strike a sympathetic chord in many Pakistanis. But then the old question arises: who will bell the cat? Already the tax returns for this year have been delayed twice; rumour has it that the filing of wealth tax return is the real issue. Amid all the hype over broadening the tax base, is this the right message to the tax-payers? It would seem that despite all his good intentions, Imran Khan’s agenda, is most likely to meet the same fate as another seven point, that of the then general, now prisoner, Pervez Musharraf. A privileged class does not voluntarily surrender its privileges.