LAHORE: Some warriors believe in killing their adversaries through a thousand wounds instead of killing them in one go. Our rulers have also adopted the same strategy with common Pakistanis, as they are gradually inflicting punitive measures to bleed them to death.
Death through thousand wounds inflicted over a short period leads to death due to profuse bleeding. Since each wound has minimal impact, the victim tolerates the first few instead of retaliating, and after a few small wounds, the victim becomes too weak to resist.
Our economic managers adopted the same technique by gradually squeezing the space for the poor. Electricity rates before this regime assumed power were Rs9 per unit plus duties and levies that doubled the final bill (average of Rs18 inclusive of all taxes). Today the tariff of one power unit is Rs16 and logically the final bill should be Rs32 per unit, but the consumers will look for cover when the average unit cost of December power bills would be Rs45.
The government first inflicted a small wound by gradually increasing the power tariff and after flattening the will of the consumers decided to inflict a larger wound. The script is the same for edibles, utilities, home appliances and cars when we examine it for the middle class and the poor.
For the rich and influential there are no worries, but they are few in numbers. Rupee has been left at the mercy of speculators and manipulators.
Ishaq Dar is accused of managing the rupee dollar parity during his stint as finance minister. The International Monetary Fund during his tenure never pressed Pakistan to devalue the currency.
Current regime allowed free fall of rupee and now its own finance minister is stating that rupee is grossly undervalued by Rs9-10 against the greenback. Why does the central bank not intervene to ensure a fair value of our currency?
Neither the industrialists nor the traders have any idea where this downslide would stop. Some are openly predicting a dollar value in the range of Rs200.
People of Pakistan have suffered badly on this count because there is no government writ and fair-trade practices are relics of the past. As soon as the rupee declines, traders and stockist calculate the impact of this devaluation on the products including all taxes and announce new rates on the existing stock. There was also a time this year when the rupee posted gains against the US dollar from Rs165 to Rs152 in May 2021. However, prices remained unmoved back then.
Price increases of the past were never reversed, with the government only looking on as a silent spectator because these actions by traders and stockist do not hurt government revenues, but the pockets of the consumers.
The pockets of the consumers already have many holes. Most have restricted their purchases to what is essential.
For the revenue authority a weak rupee is an opportunity to collect more revenue. The Pakistani government is grossly short of revenues. It lacks the muscle to tax the actual rich, but the wounded poor are easy targets.
In poor and middle-class households, when resources dry out, families scramble to reduce their expenses. This is the norm the world over.
Governments also squeeze their expenditure to operate within means. In Pakistan, the gap between resources and expenditure has been widening every year during the last 20 years.
The government expenses however continue to increase much above the new taxes they envisage in every budget. This is illogical.
In the earlier years, loans were acquired for development purposes. Gradually, development was placed on the back burner and loans were sought to manage recurring general expenses of the state.
Now a stage has come where we can obtain loans to service previous loans. We need loans for our defense.
The world is not a fool to make you stronger through their loans. We must generate our own resources. We have the potential, but our rulers lack the will. Public appeasing is no more possible, still after defense and debt servicing, public appeasing subsidy programmes are our third largest expenditure. We are now cornered; the donors are after our sovereignty and soon they will dictate to us how to manage our security as well. They will decide which defense projects we pursue and which to roll back.
Meanwhile, the majority of the population is on the verge of collapse. Their food intake is low; they have unresolved health issues, and their children are either out of school or out of knowledge due to poor teaching and infrastructure.
If resources are not generated fairly from the richer segments of the society, we might end up as a banana republic (if we already are not).
In the current scenario, many poor think that death is an easier option than to live miserably with no hopes of better days.