Pity the nation that remains divided even in crises

By Nizamuddin Siddiqui

OPINION | August 30

All stakeholders should pull in the same direction to ease economic crisis

AUGUST 28 was a bittersweet day for Pakistan, as the nation received good news as well as bad regarding the economy during it. The good news was that soon after a reputable global agency (Fitch) had upgraded Pakistan’s credit ratings, another agency (Moody’s) had also done so, thereby confirming that its economy is improving. In late July Fitch had upgraded Pakistan’s long-term foreign currency Issuer Default Rating to “CCC+” from “CCC”. And now Moody’s has upgraded the country’s ratings for local and foreign currency issuer and senior unsecured debt from “Caa3” to “Caa2”.

This piece of information should have made the nation very happy, particularly because Moody’s had repeated what Fitch had said earlier about the country’s “improving macroeconomic conditions and moderately better government liquidity and external positions, from very weak levels”. But alas that was not to be.

The reason? Well, the country’s economy had almost come to a standstill on the day, due to a nationwide “shutter-down” strike called by the Jamaat-e-Islami (an opposition party) and by associations of traders and small businesses. And therein lay the day’s bad news.

Mainstream media outlets reported that the strike call had received wide support from political parties like the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl and associations of businesspeople such as the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

As a result, all major shopping centres in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad remained shut as did shops in many cities and towns in the interior of Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The associations of businesspeople that called the strike said they had forced a closure in protest against “exorbitant” electricity bills (which many of them termed as “monthly tax”), withholding tax, professional tax and generally the government’s “anti-business policies”.

The sense one got from studying their statements was they didn’t want to pay any tax. Period. And that too at a time when the nation is facing serious economic as well as financial problems. Mind you, only a small fraction of traders and shopkeepers pay all the taxes they should. Those that don’t pay taxes are violators of the law, to be clear.

Not only that, most of the traders and shopkeepers throw a spanner in the works each time ANY government decides to introduce a new tax or enhance rates of existing taxes by holding big and small protests. That’s purely because they are more worried about their petty interests than the national interest.

Another problem is the ever-widening divide between the ruling coalition and the opposition parties. To be sure, it’s only natural for there to be differences between the parties in government and those in opposition. However, in advanced countries politicians as well as the public expect the differences to go away in times of crises. That’s why peoples within such a country try to forge unity among themselves whenever war breaks out.

In our country, however, parties in opposing camps don’t let notions like unity and cohesion erase the differences that separate them. The political parties are often so belligerent in their opposition to each other that whenever one succeeds in getting into power they put their rivals into prison. I mean, for the last one decade we have seen opposition leaders being made to spend time in prison until such time as the ruling coalition rules the roost. The roles are reversed, of course, when the shoe is on the other foot.

Then there’s the issue of government’s legitimacy. A large number of Pakistanis rightly raise questions about the right of the PPP-PML-N combine to form a government at the centre. After all, many of them justifiably think the general election that underpinned the creation of the incumbent government was rigged. Criticising such a government, especially when it hasn’t adopted meaningful austerity measures despite our economic woes, is fair game.

Be that as it may, it’s utterly wrong for the government and its supporters, on the one hand, and the rest of the nation, on the other, to keep working at cross purposes during times of crises. The economy is in the doldrums — no, it’s actually sitting on the brink of disaster. All the stakeholders should join hands so that we may climb out of the deep hole that we have dug for ourselves over the last few decades. It’s a perfect storm that we are currently facing, not just another economic crisis.  

At such a critical juncture in our history, it’s not at all advisable to have disunity in our ranks. That’s why one opposes the calling of strikes and protests at this time, particularly by people whose sole aim is to avoid paying income and other taxes. In a similar vein, one opposes the manner in which the country’s media organisations have been covering protests mounted by people who have thus far managed to dodge the taxman again and again.

Such elements should be described as violators of law; they are characterised as tax avoiders and tax evaders across the world. They should, therefore, never be granted the status of genuine protesters. At least the mainstream media should have the wisdom to make the distinction between blackmailers and innocent taxpayers who have been overburdened with taxes.

Therefore, it was wrong on the part of media outlets to give more importance to the traders’ strike than the good news from Moody’s. But perusal of newspaper editions for Aug 29 showed that apart from one notable exception, all the other editors had granted the traders’ strike the status of their lead and the Moody’s report that of their second or even third lead.

In view of the above reasons, one feels the people who are organising sit-ins and protests at a time of a grave national crisis and those who are playing up their strikes in media are doing a disservice to the nation. Better sense should prevail as “all hands on the deck” should pull in the same direction to ease the ongoing crisis. It’s an existential crisis that we are facing and that’s exactly how it should be treated by all Pakistanis.