Chowrangi

Sometimes I wonder why we pay taxes. It looks like all the taxes collected by the government are used to fatten the already fat bank accounts of the rulers. After all, the ruling classes are also human: they have to take their families to Europe and the United States on vacations at least twice a year, where they can buy the most expensive stuff with their ill-gotten money. And they have to go on free Umrah trips now and then (so that Allah will forgive them for looting the taxpayers).

Whenever we buy petrol, part of what we pay for it goes to the government. Every unit of electricity has a tax component, as does every telephone call. Yet the taxpayers have to endure hours of power breakdowns and water shortages. Those who indulge in looting the public have generators of their own and large water tanks in their bungalows so they never know the terrible suffering the poor have to go through. Again, it’s the wealthy who consume the most food. At every one of those wedding dinners you see hundreds of people who could do with a bit of fasting, yet they go on stuffing themselves without giving a thought to the fifty million Pakistanis who go to bed hungry every night. The signs are bad. If the situation doesn’t improve, it won’t be long before the people come out into the streets and topple the rulers. After all, it has happened in 1969, 1971 and 1977.

Other posts by Shakir Lakhani

• No limit on foreign exchange taken out of Pakistan - November 12th, 2008
• Some questions about the "forex" scandal - November 11th, 2008
• Enjoying life after sixty - November 7th, 2008
• A Hussein in the White House - November 5th, 2008
• Why are poor Pakistanis always punished? - October 31st, 2008
• Pakistan's Economic Crisis: we're responsible - October 29th, 2008
• How Wall Street operates - October 23rd, 2008
• We’ll always have corruption - October 19th, 2008
• If Pakistan goes to war with United States of America - October 9th, 2008
• Killing of Christians in Secular India - October 1st, 2008