Capital suggestion
Dr Farrukh Saleem
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Talk about extremism.
More than 72 million Pakistanis make Rs100 or less per day. And yet, Budget 2011-12 has allocated Rs5.5 million per day for foreign tours of the president and the prime minister of the Islamic Republic. Imagine; if our president and the prime minister decide to stay home for a month the money thus saved would be sufficient to provide two decent meals to nearly two million of the 72 million Pakistanis living below the poverty line.
Talk about extremism. Four out of 10 Pakistanis live in abject poverty. And yet, the PM Secretariat’s gas bill from the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) is in the amount of five million rupees (yet to be paid).
Extreme poverty means having to pick between buying medicines for your sick daughter or cooking dal for your aging mother. Extreme poverty means having to pick between buying milk for your infant daughter or roti for your teenage son. Between 2008 and 2011, the number of Pakistanis living in extreme poverty has gone up from 47 million to 72 million – a three year jump of more than 50 percent. Coincidentally, accumulated food inflation over the past three years has clocked at a frightening 57 percent.
Imagine; 100 million Pakistanis make Rs170 per day or less. As Pakistanis at Rs100 per day and Rs170 per day end up spending 60 percent to 70 percent of what they earn on food so when food inflation goes through the roof, millions more are pushed into extreme poverty. Over the past three years an average of 8.5 million Pakistanis are being forced into extreme poverty per year – and that’s a total of 26 million additional Pakistanis facing extreme poverty.
In 1995, the World Summit on Social Development defined absolute poverty as “a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information.” Imagine; more than 40 percent of all Pakistanis are in a “condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic human needs...”.
Chances are that no one reading this makes Rs100 or less per day but if you are, this is what you could buy with it: 1.25 kilos of dal mash or less than two kilos of sugar or 700 grammes of mangoes or two kilos of tomatoes or four kilos of onions – not all, just one of the five. And then there’s rent, clothes, and utility bills to worry about.
Corrupt governance, poor education, war, capital flight, or a brain drain, any one of these on its own can cause a ‘poverty trap’ in which the poor are unable to get out of poverty for generations. Imagine; Pakistan suffers from all five – corrupt governance, poor education, war, capital flight, and a brain drain. As a consequence, at least 72 million Pakistanis are now trapped into a nasty ‘poverty trap’. Governments can help break the trap but a government that has trapped itself into a Rs1,000,000,000,000 budgetary deficit cannot. Imagine; a Rs1,000,000,000,000 deficit is the equivalent of Rs1,200 a month for each and every one of the 72 million extremely poor Pakistanis.
The United Nations defines poverty as “a violation of human dignity”. Poverty and violence are directly proportional while poverty and national pride are inversely proportional. Remember; sovereignty is a concern of the well-heeled not the under-fed.
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. Email:
farrukh15@hotmail.com
