It Wasn’t A Poor-Friendly Budget

A former minister for Hajj and some senior officers of the Ministry of Hajj who were found guilty of corruption and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment the other day must hang their heads in shame as they have brought a very bad name to their country and also did an extreme disservice to their religion. The sons of the former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani were also allegedly involved in the Hajj scam at one point of time in the investigations of this case. The former PM along with those who were responsible for selecting such a corrupt person as minister for Hajj must also get the flak for it. Was the former PM sleeping while his minister for Hajj indulged in financial irregularities right under his nose ?Didn’t umpteen intelligence agencies inform him about the financial shenanigans of his minister for Hajj?If they had, then why didn’t the PM show him the door there and then? What is pitiable is the fact that the convicted persons exploited the fair name of Islam for minting money and lining their pockets .
The fact of the matter is that the convicted minister had been a part of the political set up which was equally or rather more corrupt than the present rulers. It was the norm rather than exception during the stint in office of the former regime that one had to grease the palms of those who moved in the corridors of power to get things done .
POSTSCRIPT: What good is a budget if those who should be paying taxes are not taxed?The government should have found no difficulty in bringing under the tax net those who live in palatial houses, who travel frequently abroad in the business or first class, whose children study in the most expensive educational institutions in the country or abroad, who drive in the BMWs or other cars having prohibitive cost or who own prime land and property inside the country . Everything related to their above- mentioned style of life is documented. This class has not been taxed to the extent it could have been taxed because the rulers also belong to it . No serious attempt has hitherto been made to document the national economy without which taxes cannot be collected in a fair manner from a vast section of the elite .