Daily Times

A good thing has happened! Mr Najam Sethi has emerged as the most suitable ‘interim’ something for everything! He can be an interim chief minister and bring luck to Mr Nawaz Sharif. He can be the interim chairman of cricket board and do something good to it. Mr Sethi clearly said that he had been a bowler and a batsman in school. There you go. He could have been an interim finance minister too. I am sure Mr Sethi has done some additions and subtractions in school. He could have been the interim finance minister and performed better in making the budget.

My real problem is the budget presented by the finance minister of the third time ‘new’ prime minister (PM). I have yet to meet a person who has liked this budget. Of course, it is laden with direct and indirect taxation. Life of the common man is increasingly difficult. All promises made pre-election of serving the ‘people’, bringing in law and order, providing electricity and improving economy are shamelessly forgotten, and, we have once again landed in the lap of the IMF with a begging bowl.

The circulating jokes in the SMS world sometimes reflect what the people think. A recent joke says: “Khoon Zardari pee gaya, gosht ‘Sher’ khaa gaya or khaal tou hae he Shaukat Khanum kae liyae!”(Blood was sucked by Zardari, flesh eaten by the ‘Lion’ and of course the skin is for Shaukat Khanum’). This is a true reflection of what masses feel about our set-up of governance. The silence of the people in general is more telling than the odd analysis and criticism here and there.

Perhaps the cruelest, and even ridiculous, imposition is the house tax on Zone A. It is almost unbelievable that the Zone A classified as luxury housing exists only in Lahore and only in Gulberg, Model Town and Garden Town in Lahore! A luxury house is defined as the one or two kanal (1000 square yards) or more in these areas and nowhere else. Although there are areas where actual luxury houses exist from eight to 80-kanal, and the price of land is equal or more than the so-called Zone A. Houses on two-kanal plots are common in many areas like Cantonment, ‘General’s colony’, DHA, Canal Bank, Johar Town, Valencia, Bahria Town and so on and so forth. A media giant owns an 80-kanal luxurious house in one of these areas in the heart of the city.

On top of all this the huge holdings and houses of the PM’s family in Model Town, Lahore are said to be exempted because these are being used for the ‘larger interest’ of the nation, i.e. being the residence of the chief minister, visiting rest house of the PM etc. How considerate! I am sure Mr Sethi would have given them good advice to not be so blatantly shameless, and for this he needed no more than the simple knowledge of school mathematics. Most of the people living in this area believe that this is a revenge against the residents of the area for not voting for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz candidate. This is the constituency from where the PML-N candidate lost.

The crown of this budget is worn by Mr Ishaq Dar, and the rubber stamp approval has been provided by the ‘large mandate’ of the PML-N lawmakers who are not obliged to have any educational qualification whatsoever to qualify to become a ‘law maker’! As this is what people get from such democracy, so they joke feeling helplessness.

Have another look at this Zone A taxation. It is an act of blatant discrimination and violation of the spirit of constitution. In fact, it should be a cognizable offence for punishment. How can this tax be applied indiscriminately and a preferential treatment be accorded to those who live outside the ‘zone’? In the whole of the country they find only Model Town, Gulberg and Garden Town in this category. What happened to Mr Dar? Has he not seen any other area in the whole of Pakistan? I cannot believe it. Mr Dar has only tried to satisfy the vindictive nature of the boss by imposing tax on the areas his boss lost elections in.

Another legally valid question is about those who inherited the properties in these areas and are living in these with the roof on their head provided by their late elders. In most cases, the earnings of the occupants are modest and they cannot cough up this huge tax in hundreds of thousands of rupees. What are they supposed to do? The PM once tried to become the Ameer-ul-Mominin by amending the constitution; now does he want his subjects in the Zone A to fall at his feet and beg for mercy for the crime of not voting for his party?

Finally, what needs to be seen is that the house owners are already paying property tax on their houses. How can there be double taxation on the same property?

I felt that there was some cautious hope from the new government, and that people realised that the country was faced with serious issues. Most of the people were prepared to be patient and bear some suffering if sincere efforts were made to alleviate the problems. But unfortunately, the new government is falling short of expectations too much and too soon. It needs to put its act together instead of seeking diversion of attention by such obviously bad taxation or by following the article six of the constitution against Syed Pervez Musharraf, which will be an unproductive exercise from the point of view of people at large. There are much bigger issues and the masses have given a clear mandate to the PML-N to solve national problems. Maybe this is PML-N’s last chance to prove its worth.

The writer is the former CEO Pakistan National Council of the Arts; Chairman Fruit processing Industries; Chairman UNESCO Theatre Institute Pakistan; COO ‘ICTV’ USA, and currently, Senior Vice President APML(Central). He can be reached at naeemtahir37@gmail.com