Announcing the decision during his Eid Day tour of the quake-hit areas, he lamented that the world did not respond to the quake as generously as it did to last year's tsunami, while Pakistan has to deal with the much bigger issue of reconstruction and rehabilitation. Still, he said, "we expect an equal amount of assistance [which the] tsunami and Katrina got."
Going by the donor response so far, that expectation is unlikely to be fulfilled; in fact the sense of shock and sympathy that the quake's death and destruction generated is going to wear off with the passage of time. It is important, therefore, for Pakistan to try and fend for its needs from its own resources.
Notably, as per the initial estimates, Pakistan had asked the donors for help worth $5 billion; that figure was later revised upwards to $6 billion. The F-16 deal, under which Pakistan was to buy 77 aircraft, was to cost it a hefty sum of $4 billion. Hence delaying that one deal alone will save the country a huge chunk of the much-needed money.
Then the decision to delay another purchase of military aircraft from Sweden worth $1 billion would also be helpful. As General Musharraf himself said postponing the purchase would not harm Pakistan's defence. It is worth recalling that Pakistan had clinched a deal for buying 40 F-16 aircraft more than a decade ago, and even though it had paid the entire price, the planes were never delivered due to the imposition of sanctions under a Pakistan-specific discriminatory law, the Pressler Amendment.
If the country could do without them during the tension-filled decade of the 90s, it can certainly afford to wait a few years more at a time it is engaged in a historic peace process with its arch-rival, India.
In fact, there is need for a review of all expenditures with a view to fixing priorities afresh. Surely, there are things that need to be taken care of on an immediate/ongoing basis while others can wait.
In a press statement on Monday, Makhdoom Amin Fahim, chief of the PPP-P, pointed to a possible source of saving in the latter category as he demanded that just like the government postponed the F-16 deal it should also put off, to a later date, the construction of a new GHQ in Islamabad. It is not known how much the new GHQ is going to cost the exchequer.
Presumably, the cost would be huge. His politics aside, Makhdoom Fahim made sense as he averred that if the military headquarters is not shifted to Islamabad soon that would not diminish Pakistan's defence capability. After all, it has been where it is now ever since the country came into being.
There have also been suggestions that the proceeds from the privatisation process should be diverted to the relief and reconstruction effort. However, it is important to remember that the sale of government owned enterprises is only a one-time affair.
As per a government decision, 75 percent of the privatisation process proceeds are to be used for debt retirement and the rest for poverty alleviation. Both are extremely important obligations, and cannot be ignored. It would be more useful at this point in time to revisit the tax system in order to generate more revenue through new avenues.
More to the point, far too long agriculture has been left out of the federal income tax regime. It is true that some time ago the provinces did take some steps in that direction but these were meant mainly to deflect the growing public criticism of the feudal class not paying its share of taxes, and hence proved to be of no more than a cosmetic nature.
Now that the government is looking at every possible source of generating funds, it must reconsider the question of agriculture tax and do the needful, even though it would require a constitutional amendment for which the government must endeavour in earnest by moving the amendment in the National Assembly.