An amnesty for improvement

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi announced an amnesty scheme on April 5, 2018 to improve the country’s dwindling foreign exchange reserves and broaden the country’s tax base. Soon after this, Raza Rabbani, who is a respectable politician of the PPP, rejected the amnesty scheme. Afterwards, Imran Khan, while addressing a press conference in Hyderabad on April 6, rejected the amnesty scheme. Imran Khan is one of the country’s major political leaders and it is his duty to unite with the government on a policy that is good for the country. We have seen in the recent past that an amnesty scheme announced by Indonesia proved to be quite useful for the country because that amnesty scheme did not only increase the government’s tax revenue, but also boosted Indonesia’s foreign exchange reserves. There is no denying the fact that both Raza Rabbani and Imran Khan know that Pakistan is facing serious external accounts deficit. This is because of huge trade budget deficits triggered by a narrow tax base.

Although this amnesty targets to help resolve these two problems, it is being rejected by well-known politicians. Considering the fact that almost all country’s chambers of commerce and leading country’s top businessmen and famous economists have backed the amnesty scheme announced by the prime minister, I don’t think Raza Rabbani and Imran Khan have served the nation by rejecting the amnesty scheme. While Imran Khan rejected the amnesty scheme, he went on to say that annually an amount of $12 billion is being illegally taken out of the country. Imran Khan also claimed in his press conference on April 6, 2018 that an amount of $12 billion is being taken out of Pakistan illegally on an annual basis. This is a massive amount for foreign exchange-starved country like Pakistan. Imran Khan owes the nation a proof for his claim, otherwise this statement is quite misleading.

Ejaz Ahmad Magoon

Lahore