May 22, 2006	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 23, 1427

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LARKANA, May 21: Contrary to government’s claims that there is 25 per cent poverty in the country, independent economist Dr Qaisar Bengali has said that more people are living below the poverty line.

He said that empirical studies indicated that poverty in Punjab was 26 per cent, in the NWFP 29 per cent, in Sindh 31 per cent and in Balochistan 51 per cent.

Speaking at a recent lecture programme on ‘Growth, inequality and poverty’, he said the studies depicted the GDP growth rate of provinces as 2.6 per cent in Punjab, 2.2 per cent (the NWFP), 1.7 per cent (Sindh) and zero per cent (Balochistan).

He said that it was for that reason that there was unrest in Balochistan.

The programme was organised by the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology.

Rejecting American magazine Foreign Affairs’ index ranking Pakistan in failed states, he said that actually the country was under stress as it confronted the issues of unequal distribution of water and financial resources.

Qaiser Bengali said that the country needed institutional changes and broadening of the base for education to face challenges.

Indicating towards the fast outflow of resources from Sindh to other provinces, he said that revenue-generation of the province continued to increase but its inward spending was decreasing.

“Sindh generates 70 per cent revenue but it gets hardly 40 to 50 per cent share while the NFC size varies from 25 to 26 per cent”, he said.

He suggested inclusion of revenue-generation and resource transfer issues in the National Finance Commission award.

He said that in fact southern provinces were paying their revenue to northern provinces. He said that retrogressive forces were out to what he called suppressing Sindh’s economy and growth.

He said that statistics showed that poor pay more taxes than the rich while 20 per cent families in the country were taking away 34 per cent of the GDP while poor take only nine per cent share.

“We are living in the feudal age while the need of the hour is to entering fast into what he called knowledge-based economy”.

Without striking equality in all fields the country could not arrive at the destination, he said, and added that after irrigation it was the education department where corruption was higher and rampant.

Stressing on generating economic assets, he appreciated the growth of economic assets in Z.A. Bhutto’s days when the growth rate was 21 per cent while it shrunk to merely 2.7 per cent during Gen Zia’s tenure.

“No assets have been generated during Gen Musharraf’s regime”, he said.

He said that there was no development during Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif’s days as they paid back loans taken by Gen Zia.