You know how some bad eggs in every country don't pay taxes. In Pakistan nobody pays taxes except for a few dumb baskets. Entire country has it's fingers in the till. Smuggling is art of the economy. From electrical goods, cars, even petrol is smuggled in vast quantaties.
I knew petrol was smuggled from Iran but I always thought of it as small scale because let's face it petrol is not easiest thing to smuggle. But then I read a report and article that the entire economy of border districts in Balochistan live on smuggled Iranian oil which is sold at 50% cost of local fuel.
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And as is always the case with these trhings you will have officials being bribed or even involved in the racket. I suppose when Pakistan has had prime ministers like Zardarei and Sharifs and everybody knew they were lining their packets it inspired all those below them until it ecame a national industry.
‘Senior police officers smuggling Iranian oil’
Oil sector experts estimate that around 0.7 million litres of oil is being smuggled from Iran to Pakistan every day.
www.dawn.com
Then the funny part is the same public who won't pay taxes expect everything free from the government. Jobs, schools, free health care, housing, roads, cheap electricity, cheap gas [both are mostly being stolen via illegal connections or bent inspectors] and then you have PDF crowd wanting the boys toys and latest jet fighters.
Did you know that the provincial PTI government of Khyber Paktunkwa has given free health [Sehat] insurance cards to every family in the province. That means the province has 100% medical cover which is better figure then USA where vast numbers are too poor and not covered.
In addition under the unversal Ehsaas welfare programme every poor person is covered with minimum welfare payments. Even in the remotest erstwhile tribal regions roads, shopping, housing, sports complexes are being built.
As if all this is not impressive enough the provincial government [don't forget federal government runs it's own national projects[ is busy laying a new network of motorways costing billions. I drove on these last year and the quality is as good if not better then European expressways/motorways. Examples -
M-16 Swat motorway [complete]
M-14 Hakla-Di Khan Motorway [almost complete]
And just recently approved that it does not have number
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Now think about this. If your building six lane motorways they can't be for mules and camels. Many are toll and this tells you how many have cars plus have money to pay tolls. Of course in the entire province of 40 million people probably less than 50,000 are paying decent amount of tax. Again note these are provincial projects and not the vast national scale CPEC funded federal motorway projects which connect the entire country.
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So where does the money come from.
Begging international donors. Borrowing money from international lenders. And even with that being in a state of near bankruptcy. This is what you of course read on global media.
The welfare project [givin cash transfers to the poor] costs billions which was called Benezir Income Support Programme but now has been replaced with Ehsaas even recieves foreign funding. For example the largest part of DFID UK funds go to Pakistan to support the Ehsaas programme.
The other day I read a comment in a British newspaper by saying "it's bad enough for my tax to be used to pay for the dole in UK but now we are even paying for dole in Pakistan".
But the funny thing is this creaky structure called Pakistan keeps still rolling along. Punjab has also similiar programmes and is slightly behind with the health card rollout. The laggard is Sindh. Almost nothing is being done there. And we know where all the money is ending up there. In the pockets of the two mafias that dominate it.
On another note I am off to Pakistan next month again.