EDITORIAL : THE DAWN, PAKISTAN

Arms licences

THERE was a time when newspapers would map the journey of a gun to the individual holding it. This type of rudimentary reporting has since gone out of demand. In fact, today the occasional police references to the origins of a grenade thrown here and a bullet fired there are dismissed as remnants of an investigation routine that lags behind the dangerous times we live in. Arms are now a part as well as a way of life.

In this context, the government`s apparent need to use arms licences as an instrument to please its insecure friends is appalling. A Dawn report says that, despite a ban since January 2010, arms licences continue to be issued, providing the proud weapon-holders with a power symbol they cannot do without. Some 7,000 applications for licences sent by the interior ministry are pending with Nadra, and a senior Nadra official has confirmed the receipt of additional individual applications that are recommended by the prime minister, who has already allowed the issuance of 300 arms licences during the period the ban has been in place. The beneficiaries of his favour include retired, senior servicemen and prominent politicians and bureaucrats.

The government is estimated to have issued some 10,000 arms licences since 2008 in a country where legal arms are but a small fraction of a large heap of weapons. The news item in Dawn is bound by formalities to make a distinction between licences issued for non-prohibited and prohibited bores, whereas theoretically the ban is for all licences issued since the beginning of 2010 to be placed in the category of the prohibited. If this were not enough, the report shows the spokesman of a party which had in January filed a (now withdrawn) deweaponisation bill in the Senate defending his right to have a legal weapon — to combat the holders of illegal gadgets of destruction. His party had backed the bill in the Senate with figures of thousands of deaths caused by `illegal weapons` between 2006 and 2009. The government had found the bill rather unnecessary given there were already so many laws to deal with the issue of the spread of weapons in the country. Those who had thought that this official recognition would perhaps lead to an effective invoking of the relevant legal provisions for a fight against weaponisation must be disappointed. The government appears too obsessed with old power symbols and the security of a privileged few to be bothered about the dangers that brandished guns, both legal and illegal, pose to the people at large.

Tax evasion

PAKISTAN is a haven for those who do not want to pay their taxes. Nobody will ask any questions, let alone arrest and punish anyone for tax pilferage, even if the lifestyle being maintained is luxurious and well beyond one`s declared means. The number of people filing income tax returns has, therefore, dropped radically over the years. This year, for example, less than one per cent out of 180 million people filed their income tax returns. The non-filers comprised the country`s wealthy elite including politicians, generals, landlords, traders and others who have very intelligently kept their incomes out of the net. Little wonder then that the gap between the amount of tax owed and that of tax paid voluntarily and on time is expanding. Revenue generated through tax accounts for less than 10 per cent of the country`s GDP, one of the lowest in the world despite the heavy indirect taxation on the common people. This leaves economic survival heavily dependent on foreign aid and loans.

However, times seem to be changing now. International donors and lenders are refusing to help us unless we help ourselves. The international pressure on the government has forced it to at least think of ways to increase tax revenues to ward off a possible economic collapse. Last month, it announced it would partially withdraw tax exemptions to certain sectors. Now the Federal Board of Revenue plans to serve notices over the next couple of months to 50,000 tax evaders living a life of luxury. One hopes that the FBR will soon take steps to also bring into the tax net the rest of the 2.3 million people who have been identified as having “sufficient financial resources” but who do not file returns. If implemented honestly, it could prove to be the first such major attempt in recent years to broaden the extremely narrow tax base. The principles of fairness and equity demand that the drive does not leave out the powerful regardless of their political clout if the purpose of the exercise is to instil fear of the law in the hearts of tax evaders.

A dangerous request

THE Libyan rebel leader who wants foreign forces on his soil perhaps doesn`t realise the implications of what he is asking for. Talking to journalists on Tuesday, the Misrata-based leader pleaded for British and French forces to help the rebels in their fight against Col Qadhafi. Obviously, the Misrata leadership is desperate, because the Benghazi-based Transitional National Council is fighting its own battle and is unable to help the beleaguered Misrata pocket against the well-armed Qadhafi loyalists, who are using rockets and air power against the enemy. This is causing heavy civilian casualties, too, with the overall death toll from the civil war being 10,000 killed and over 55,000 injured. It is bad for him but good in the long run for his country that European powers do not seem willing to send their troops to Libya. While Paris has rejected the very idea of French soldiers taking part in the fighting, London has offered to send military `advisers`, who will be helping neither in arming and training the rebels nor in planning. That makes one wonder what the advisers will be there for. Meanwhile, Nato has continued its bombing runs.

Nuri Abdullah Abdullati, the Misrata rebel, said he was appealing for foreign troops on “humanitarian and Islamic principles” so that the slaughter could stop. He should know that the Arab League has already developed reservations about Nato strikes because of heavy civilian casualties, and the Organisation of Islamic Conference has not stirred itself while a massacre goes on in a member-country. A foreign military presence in an oil-rich country in the midst of a civil war will further complicate the Libyan situation, and Mr Qadhafi and his dynasty could well be the gainer. And even if the rebels win, the new regime will always have the stigma of being installed by foreign powers.