Corrupt policies of political, social elites affect poor in Pakistan: Dr. Jan

KARACHI: Academic expert Dr. Ammar Ali Jan has said that due to self-centric and corrupt policies of the political and social elites, an artificial crisis had taken place in Pakistan which was affecting only the poor while sparing the rich.

While talking on ‘IMF’s agenda: Reform or Recipe for Disaster’ organized by the National Trade Union Federation here in Karachi. Dr. Ammar Ali Jan said that this crisis was existing not only because of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s inept government but also because of the past government’s agendas.

He said that the establishment and its cohorts were running a drive in the country to crush people’s movement since the era of military dictator General Ziaul Haq and their goal is to eradicate the agendas that differ with theirs.

He said that the International Monetary Fund from which the current and the past governments have been taking loans wants that all from education to health should be privatized and the state should not take the liability of the citizens in the country.

Ali Jan further said that due to these conditions, the riches are getting richer while the poor ones have reached the brink of food insecurity. He said that the situation is even worse than if someone gets a bed in a public hospital, they think of it as a blessing because the public hospitals have become overcrowded and the facilities there are pathetic.

He said that it was happening because of the incompetence of the authorities and the rampant corruption which does not let the due rights reach the people.

He said that the government opines that inflation is occurring because the dollar’s rate to rupee has gone up but it does not explain why it did happen. He said that even in this crisis when making both ends meet has become extremely difficult for a common person, the riches are living a luxury as they were before because the circumstances especially suit them or are designed by themselves.

Referring to the wheat shortage, he said that the mafia that sits with the government is so powerful that it muzzled down the reports that the country could face a crisis to achieve their agenda of sending wheat to Afghanistan as a so-called good-will gesture.
He said that while the government was sending wheat to the world, its own people were hungry.

He said that the power sector was also looting people. Citing an incident from Lahore in which a woman from a lower-middle-class household committed suicide after a bill of Rs27,000 landed at her house. He said that the woman decided to take her life because her mother-in-law would blame her for the excessive bill.

He said that students were also suffering from depression and committing suicides because they did not see a future for themselves in the current situation of the country. He said that on the demand of the IMF, the government is putting more and more taxes on the people to repay the loans which never reached them.

He said that nearly all the governments took loans and after six to seven declared bankruptcy to take more. He said that the money coming in the loans never reaches the public yet they are forced to pay them back.

He said that this was happening because the political, social, military and business elites, despite all their artificial differences, were on the same page to make more for themselves while the public was divided into ethnic, racial, religious and so many other lines. He said that the country will only go towards progress when the public setting aside their difference will unite and take to streets.