| June 18, 2002 | Tuesday | Rabi-us-Sani 6, 1423 |
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An odious approach
In wrongful occupation
IN spite of a detailed post-budget press conference by the finance minister, a number of issues pertaining to the next year’s fiscal measures remain obscure and defy a logical explanation. The vagueness of some of these measures has created a strong impression that from December onwards the domestic consumers would be required to pay GST in full on their power bills and that the rates of petroleum development levy (PDL) would go up substantially from July 1 this year. The first measure would seriously affect the middle and lower middle classes whose basket of CPI (consumer price index) items are different from the one used by the government to calculate the national CPI and work out the inflation rate prevalent in the country in a given period. Similarly, the second measure would add to the cost of industrial and agricultural inputs, making their products not only costlier for local consumers but also uncompetitive in the international markets. The impression that the government is all set to increase the PDL has arisen from the fact that the collection target under this head has been revised upward from Rs. 32 billion in 2001-02 to Rs. 45 billion in 2002-03. The increase of over 40 per cent in this income within a matter of 12 months cannot naturally be attributed to a steep increase in the demand for petroleum products. Most of it has naturally to come from a sizable increase in prices of POL.
The drastic reduction in the new budget in the subsidy being given to Wapda and the KESC to compensate for their GST burden has given rise to the impression that from December onwards the consumers will be required to pay in full the GST on their power bills. This subsidy has been reduced from 9.5 billion and Rs. 1.14 billion respectively in the revised 2001-02 budget to Rs. 4.3 billion and Rs. 858 million respectively in the new budget. There could be other explanations as well for this. One could be that the overall consumption of electricity, according to the budget-makers’ projections, would go down drastically during the year, requiring the provision of subsidy to be halved. But the possibility of this happening appears remote, so that an alternative has been sought in passing on at least half the GST burden to the consumers from July 1, 2002. Or the intention may well be to do away with the subsidy altogether from the second half of the year. This last option seems more plausible as the finance minister, when asked pointedly on the matter at his press conference, only said that currently the GST payment by the utilities was being partly borne by the government through subsidies. But he did not rule out the possibility of the withdrawal of the subsidy in the near future.
Similarly, he could not fully explain why he needed to take measures to raise the prices of vegetable ghee and edible oil which would squeeze the common households and, at the same time, reduce the duties on imported cars which would only benefit the rich. In advanced countries the rates of GST are normally kept on the lower side, say, between 2.5 per cent to seven per cent and the food items and medicines are often exempted.
AMERICA’s legal treatment of its own citizens, suspected to be members of Al Qaeda, has been inconsistent and problematic, to say the least. The recent arrest of the ‘dirty’ bomb suspect, Jose Padilla, and charges by John Walker Lindh’s lawyers that Washington violated the American Talib’s constitutional rights by improperly questioning him in custody raise questions about the tactics used by the Bush administration in detaining Al Qaeda suspects. The cases of the two men are similar in many ways. Invoking a ruling of the US Supreme Court dating back to the 1940s, Washington has labelled both men ‘enemy combatants’ and put them in military custody. In violation of the law, both men were denied access to legal counsel. In the case of Mr Walker, his lawyers contend that he was interrogated for several weeks in the most inhumane of conditions and was not only denied access to a lawyer but was also not told that his parents had managed to engage one for him.
The intention is to hold these two men indefinitely in the hope that the grilling to follow would yield sufficient evidence for their trial and conviction. By calling them ‘enemy combatants’, the government believes that it is acting within the ambit of the law, especially since Congress has authorized the president to use “all necessary and appropriate force to prevent future acts of international terrorism”. A sweeping authorization such as this is the product of the paranoia about terrorism sweeping America in the wake of the September 11 events. The purpose obviously is to make an example of whoever the government suspects as harbouring ill-intentions against America and its people. the Bush administration can make use of this power indiscriminately and, in the case of residents of Middle Eastern origins, selectively, only to create an impression of tyranny and persecution in the name of safeguarding the safety and security of the American people. This is not an odium that any government or nation should choose to incur.
IN a country where a majority of the population has no access to adequate medical facilities, it is scandalous that many of the Basic Health Units in the rural areas have been forcibly occupied by government functionaries. The units were meant to provide the rural population with affordable health care on their doorstep. Instead, many of them are being used as houses or offices by other departments. In Larkana district, for example, at least 16 buildings meant to serve as such health centres or to house doctors and other medical staff have been grabbed by officials, ranging from policemen and magistrates to employees of the district council. The pattern is familiar in many other parts of the country, where health centres and schools have been occupied by officials or local notables for their personal use.
This apart, many basic health units exist simply on paper, with no doctors or medicines available to provide the needed care. Many are staffed by ghost personnel who have their practices in the cities but manage to remain on the payroll by bribing the relevant authorities. As a result, many villagers prefer to travel to a nearby town rather than turn to such units for their health needs. The buildings housing these facilities gradually fall into disuse — which only encourages potential encroachers. This is a vicious cycle that needs to be broken. The government must beef up the facilities available at such centres and offer some incentives to doctors and para-medical staff to encourage them to serve in rural areas. Only then can these health units win back the trust of the people. As for those government functionaries who have occupied health centres, they must face disciplinary action and be ordered to vacate the buildings occupied by them immediately.