Senate reverberates with Altaf’s Sindh statement

The Senate session on Wednesday reverberated with Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain’s statement about division of Sindh.
Both treasury and opposition benches joined hands to condemn the statement while the MQM senators spent all their energies on defending their chairman.
PML-N Senator Mushahidullah Khan criticised Altaf Hussain for categorising former president Pervez Musharraf as Muhajir. He said under his justified resolve the army generals did not represent any clan, tribe or sect, but were true representatives of the people.
He asked, “… and why didn’t Altaf speak in favour of this very Muhajir general (Musharraf), when he was busy victimising yet another such Muhajir, nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, and during the bloody Lal Masjid episode?”
PPP Senator Mukhtar Ahmad Dhamra said the nation’s chagrin to Altaf’s statement was a genuine reaction.
“Such kinds of statements based on ‘basic rights and discrimination’ were totally unacceptable, since these widened the gulf between sects, clans, tribes, nation,” he cautioned.
He also rejected the notion of discrimination and sense of deprivation for Urdu-speaking community, citing the current posts of the Sindh governor, president of Pakistan and Sindh Assembly’s deputy speaker.
MQM Senator Tahir Mashhadi stressed that all communities living in Sindh were sons of mother Sindh and denied any reference to bifurcation of Sindh.
“Actually Altaf bhai just referred to equal disbursement of provincial resources and rights among all communities of Sindh to avoid any sense of deprivation,” he clarified.
Separately, the Senate was informed on Wednesday that 2475 billion rupees tax target has been set for the current financial year and an amount of 1026 billion rupees have been collected during the first half of the year.
Minister of State for Education and Interior Balighur Rehman on behalf of the finance minister told the Upper House during question hour that from July to November 2013 Rs 798.6 billion was collected which is 16.4 percent higher than the corresponding period of the last year.
He said that during the five months 93.7 percent target has been achieved.
The minister said the government is focusing on increasing the tax base. He said as a result of the government’s policy the number of tax returns has increased to a great deal.
To a question, he said tax on mobile phone cards was collected under a mechanism. He said that during the last year Rs 27 billion tax was collected from the mobile phone users. He said in 2011-12, 36.8 billion rupees tax was collected from the mobile phone users while the amount in
2010-11 was 27.5 billion rupees.
He said that new mobile phone SIMs are being issued under biometric system in Karachi and the system is being extended to all parts of the country.
To a question, the minister said that under Kerry-Lugar Bill $1.5 billion could be allocated per year starting from 2009. He said that in 2011-12 an amount of $491 million were released under the bill while in 2012-13, $582 million were released. He said in 2011-12, $125 million were used for the public sector development projects while in 2012-13 $102 million dollars were used in government sector while the remaining amount was utilized by the private sector development organisations.
To a question, he said that countries, including the US, UK, France, Germany, China, Saudi Arabia, European Union, Japan and South Korea provided a grant of $6 billion to Pakistan from 2002 onward.
He said during the same period these countries provided loan worth $6.7 billion to Pakistan.