| June 27, 2005 | Monday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 19, 1426 |
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Catalytic converters
Plastic & polypropylene
Mukhtaran Mai
Old pensioners’ woes
PIA offices
Amendments to EOBI Act
The Holy Quran
PIA planes
Vanishing middle class
Karachi’s plight
Poverty
THE Finance Bill 2005, presented by the government on June 10, proposes with reference to the biscuit, confectionery and packaging industry that sales tax should be levied on retail price as opposed to the current practice of sales tax on the wholesale price. It is not clear why the government wishes to bring about this change, as it has very serious negative implications for both the industry and the consumers.
To start with, there will be an immediate increase in the price for the consumer. This, in turn, will further fuel rise in inflation which is already hovering around 10 per cent. With the already impeded purchasing power, consumer demand will decline and there will also be a shift in demand from hygienically-produced and packaged food items to unhygienic loose products.
Therefore, manufacturers of value-added agriculture-based products will be affected adversely and the competitiveness of this important sector of the economy will be further reduced. This snowball effect will force the manufacturers to rethink their future investment strategies.
This measure also goes against the government’s desire to encourage new investment, control inflation and continue the growth momentum. It will also act against the government’s stated policies of greater documentation of the economy, greater value addition in the manufacturing sector, especially in view of WTO and reduction in poverty. It is ironic that, on the one hand, sales tax-free imports are allowed and, on the other, indigenously-produced food items are taxed at the retail price, giving undue advantage to imported goods at the cost of the local industry.
Biscuits and confectionery are food items with the middle class as the primary consumer. Anything that goes into our bodies must meet stringent quality control and health standards. European countries, for example, levy only a nominal and in some cases no sales tax on food items, especially those meant for children.
The biscuit, confectionery and packaging industry provides direct and indirect employment to thousands of people. Perhaps the decision to shift sales tax application to the retail price is based on the assumption that this will yield higher revenues for the government. On the contrary, overall revenues may not even remain at current level and may in fact go down as a result of higher prices for the consumer and lower demand.
The government needs to seriously and urgently review this Finance Bill proposal. If anything, this industry needs to be greatly encouraged with tax breaks as it is providing economic and social benefits to the country and leading the government’s own drive for value addition to essentially agricultural-based products.
ADNAN
Karachi
ACCORDING to a report, the number of vehicles in Pakistan has jumped from 0.8 million to 5.0 million within 20 years — an overall increase of about 450 per cent. The average compound growth of vehicles is about 11 per cent per annum. According to a World Bank study, diesel trucks and buses have also increased at an alarming rate of 200-300 per cent since 1980, which has contributed to air quality deterioration and costs Rs25 billion a year on related health and other effects.
The Asian Development Bank in a study (2003) on cleaner fuel stated that approximately 85 per cent of all gasoline sold throughout the world is now unleaded. In recent years, our refineries have abandoned the practice of adding tetra-ethyl lead in gasoline, so that the hazard of increasing lead levels in blood is minimized. But still the environment our cities is being badly polluted by toxic and deadly diesel exhaust. A diesel vehicle, due to overloading and faulty injection nozzles and a weak engine, emits oxides of nitrogen, particulate matters and excessive graphitic carbon (visible smoke).
Till 2001, the diesel available in our market contained more than one per cent sulphur (by weight) due to which diesel particulate filter, a device used in many countries to control emission in diesel vehicles, could not be used as it required low sulphur diesel, i.e., 0.05-0.5 per cent. Now, besides importing high speed diesel, almost all of our refineries are producing diesel which contains 0.5-0.7 (avg) weight per cent of sulphur.
Catalytic converters, including de-nox (nitrogen oxides) converters, are being used in many countries. Catalytic converters have been standard on US automobiles since the mid-1970s. The inside of the catalytic converter is a honeycomb set of passageways or small ceramic beads coated with catalysts. By using its internal catalyst, a catalytic converter (located in the exhaust system) reduces the level of harmful and photochemical smog forming emissions like carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen in a car’s exhaust and converts them to harmless carbon dioxide, nitrogen, oxygen and water. The converter uses fuel and oxygen to ‘light off’ its internal catalyst, which consumes a large portion of the gases flowing through the converter.
It is suggested that catalytic converters be installed in all new cars and restrictions must be imposed on import of vehicles without catalytic converters. A $7 million “fuel efficiency in road transport” project was started in 2001. The project aimed at reducing at source emissions of green house gases and other pollutants by improving fuel efficiency of road transport vehicles in Pakistan. Installation of catalytic converters and their subsequent checkup may be made part of the programme.
RASHID ASHRAF
Karachi
IT was very pleasant to read in your newspaper recently that the government of Sindh is once again discussing banning plastic bags in the province. It has been encouraging to see many supermarkets using paper bags for packing groceries. However, there are still many supermarkets and stores which continue to use plastic bags.
Plastic and polypropylene bags are being discouraged all over the world, due to their inherent cancer-causing agents which are released when plastic and polypropylene bags are burnt along with other garbage. If plastic and polypropylene bags are not burnt, then they are buried, which adversely affects agricultural land. There is no escape from plastic.
I was most surprised to note the headline in Dawn that the government had reduced duties on over 50 plastic raw materials, to the lowest slab of five per cent, which is astonishing as other developing countries are increasing duties on plastic raw materials to reduce their usage.
The government, NGOs and corporate companies should make every effort to limit the use of plastic and polypropylene to industries like fertilizer, where alternative modes of packaging is not recommended.
The government must undertake awareness campaigns to encourage recycling concept in Pakistan, as we are now proudly one of the fastest-growing economies in Asia, and may soon come in the league of developed nations. However, the plague of plastic and polypropylene that we leave behind for our future generations will infect them and haunt us for all time.
SYED M. KAMRAN
Karachi
THE case of Mukhtaran Mai very shamefully depicts the sad status of women in Pakistan. But why are women’s organizations and women making such an issue about her being allowed to go abroad and talk about the incident?
Mai is free to travel like every citizen of Pakistan but I would expect her, being the fighter that she is, not to leave Pakistan. Change is needed in Pakistan and it will have to come from within, not from outside. Women organizations should arrange for Mai to go around Pakistan and talk about the incident and inform the women of Pakistan of their rights and tell them that they should be bold enough to speak up rather than put up with oppression and injustice.
It is the rapists who have lost respect, not Mai. This is what society and women need to understand and propagate and so put men to shame. It would also hopefully terrify prospective rapists as they will realize that they may hope to get away from the law but they won’t from the people. This will be a far greater service Mai can render to Pakistan and particularly to the women than falling into the hands of certain women’s rights activists abroad who may well have an anti-Pakistan agenda which can do nobody any good.
I suggest that women’s organizations and the government of Pakistan work together to provide Mai the opportunity to educate the women — and men — of Pakistan on women’s rights and the power they can and should wield.
DR GHAZY MUJAHID
Bangkok
Twenty years ago, the government created two sets of pensioners. Those who retired from the old scales of pay, consequently receiving meagre pensions further eroded by ever-increasing inflation. On the other hand, employees who retired at the new scales of pay received a manifold increase in pension along with gratuity. To illustrate the point, a joint secretary in the federal government retiring in 1980 receives a pension of Rs9,000. Against this, the post-new pay scale retiree in the same Grade 20 receives twice the pension in emoluments plus gratuity. The ombudsman who was seized of the situation passed a judgment that all pensioners in identical pay scales should be seen as equal. The ombudsman’s judgment was not implemented by the federal government.
Those old pensioners who survive refuse to lose hope and look up to President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz who claim to have achieved a miracle of over eight per cent growth in the economy.
Their hopes have gone sour. Nevertheless, hope refuses to die in the hearts of old pensioners. There will be another day which might bring cheer to their lives.
S. AFZAAL HUSAIN ZAIDI
Islamabad
On June 21 I happened to visit the PIA offices at Wapda House, Lahore. I was taken aback by the unprofessional attitude of the staff. I wanted to purchase a return ticket to Karachi on student’s fare. The lady at the counter took 25 minutes to process my ticket only. When I inquired about the slow pace of her work, she replied that it was her first day there as she previously worked at the international department. I was left wondering how the international department of our flag carrier operated.
She encouraged me not to use my credit card as it added extra work for her. I did not understand how. She was not sure whether the validity of the ticket was two months or six months and whether the counting began from the day of issuance or the day of travel. In the end I purchased a one-way ticket, utterly confused. At the cash counter, the cashier had the top two buttons of his shirt open and his tie missing. The entire process took one hour, from the time I entered the ticketing department till I left.
Then I headed for the first floor where my friend had to get a refund on his previously purchased ticket. The officers kept us waiting for some 35 minutes before responding that the system was down and we had to wait a little more.
When finally everything was complete, we were sent to the second floor to get our documents signed by a certain captain. The guard at the second floor told us that the captain was in a meeting and we should go to this gentleman on the third floor who happened to be in some meeting too. We were sent to the ground floor to another gentleman who didn’t have the authority to sign our documents. We went back to the first floor to the officer, who had sent us on a wild goose chase, who informed us that we should leave and he would get the documents signed and the amount would be transferred into my friend’s bank account.
What I don’t understand is why he did not take this initiative before sending us searching for “busy” people in the entire building. Not to mention, we had to wait out an hour while these people had lunch too. Needless to say, I missed my afternoon class at the university, which I wouldn’t have had everything worked fine at PIA.
I request the management of PIA to adopt a professional attitude and learn a thing or two from the top airlines worldwide where the customer always gets first priority. When finally leaving the offices, I saw a sticker on the door which said, “PIA, where customer is the king.” How ironic.
ADEEL A. SAYA
Lahore
THE Finance Bill 2005 proposes several amendments to the various laws, including some labour laws. Its paragraph 5 contains proposed amendments to the Employees Old-Age Benefit Institution Act, 1976 (Act XIV of 1976). The following errors seem to have occurred in the paragraph as the draft of the Finance Bill 2005 as appears on the website of CBR:
1) On S.No. (2) of the para, some amendments have been proposed to clauses (b) and (f) of subsection 2 of Section 7 to change the composition of the board of trustees. However, a study of sub-section 2 shows that it does not have any (b) or (f) clauses. It is actually sub-section 1 that has the clauses intended to be amended by the bill. A correction is needed.
2) The proposed amendment to clause (f) as stated above seeks to substitute the word “two” with “one”. The clause (f) reads as follows:
(f) two persons to represent the Institution.
If the word “two” is substituted by “one”, the clause (f) will be read “one persons to represent the institution”. The word “persons” plural) needs to be replaced with “person”.
M. YAMIN KHANZADA
Karachi
IN response to Mr Sanjay Saxena’s letter (June 21), I would suggest he read “The Message of the Quran”, an English translation with ‘tafseer’ (explanatory notes of the text) by Mr Mohammad Asad, which would clear the points raised by him.
Mr Asad was born in an orthodox Jewish family and converted to Islam after reading the Holy Quran in the original and after carrying out extensive research. Unfortunately I am not well-versed in Arabic myself and have to rely on translations of the Holy Quran by various ulema. But this is the best, most lucid, appealing to logic and reasoned translation I have read so far.
Mr Mohammad Asad’s conversion to Islam is in itself illuminating. He has written about it in his book The Road to Mecca, which I would also recommend to Mr Saxena, since he has an interest in the subject.
SURAIYA HAFEEZ
Lahore
PIA’s chairman signed an MoU with Transparency Inter-national to root out corruption, if any, in PIA’s procurement department. The ink had not even dried on the agreement when the corporate planning directorate placed an ad for a worldwide tender for wet leasing a B-747-200 for its domestic and Jeddah operations.
I live in Lahore and any aviation enthusiast flying into or out of Allama Iqbal International Airport might have wondered why PIA has “stored” two of its B-747s (tail numbers AP-AYW and AP-BCL) at the Lahore airport. One also wonders why PIA wants to wet lease a B-747-200 when two of their airworthy aircraft of the same type are left to rot at the Lahore airport.
G. M RASHID
Lahore
THE article ‘Middle class vanishing in Punjab’ (special report on inflation, May 29) provides a vivid picture of an accounts officer earning Rs20,000 a month and looking, unsuccessfully so far, for a second part-time job.
He has two daughters in college and one son in school. The son had to be shifted to a relatively inexpensive school, although the parents realized that this compromised the standard of education of the son and his future.
The wife cut back on her kitchen budget. Now the family have beef or chicken (not mutton) twice a month or when someone is visiting them. Milk and milk products and fresh fruit rarely find their way into their house. The family is also saving on a number of other items like clothing, utilities and transport. Now, they attend fewer family gatherings and do not encourage guests.
This is the response of a typical middle-class family unable to increase its income to meet the mounting inflation. This family represents the impoverishing middle class which is fast slipping into poverty. The thriving national economy does nothing for them.
The article is very disturbing. The scenario is too close to home for comfort. I said to myself — there, but for the grace of God, go I.
KHURSHID ANWER
Lahore
THE effects of a restless night without power supply and the intense hot weather remained visible throughout my day in my Karachi office. In the evening on my way home I encountered a jam-packed traffic on I. I.Chundrigar Road. Right from Merewether Tower to the Shaheen Complex hundreds of people were forced to stay in their vehicles in the sizzling temperature and suffocating weather.
After about an hour when I finally managed to get out of the traffic jam, I faced the aftermath of the ongoing development projects in the city.
I can only wonder how much development this city can afford. Development work on Jehangir Road had started a week before Ramazan, but as of today there is no sign of its completion.
One can only wonder what kind of track the authorities are planning to lay down on Jehangir Road.
After so much pain and stress, when finally I reached home I once again found a power breakdown which was resolved at 2:30 in the morning.
But, even then, I would pay my thanks to the Almighty that Karachi is not a human being, because then it would have certainly been on the exit control list and would have been another name to be added in the list of persons to be safeguarded for the country’s prestige, and to fulfil their responsibilities against human rights violations our NGOs would have another rape victim to play with.
A. RAZA
Karachi
THOSE monthly income ranges from Rs3,000 to Rs5,000 a month can hardly afford to own or build a house. They live in rented premises. The government can help them by building small apartments on government land and charge rental amounting to Rs600 and Rs800pm. When the cost of construction is realized, the apartments should be transferred in the names of the occupants.
The government can also build and provide small retail shops on rent, ranging between Rs500 and Rs1,200 a month, to small retailers who can start their own business.
NURUDDIN EBRAHIM
Karachi
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