Category: 1. Pakistan

ISLAMABAD  –  Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, who assumed the UN Security Council’s presidency for July, yesterday urged UNSC and its permanent members on Wednesday to resolve the Kashmir dispute.

He underscored the need for resolving the Kashmir dispute, which he said was causing tensions and frictions between Pakistan and India. “It is time that this (Kashmir dispute) be addressed, and I would say this is not only a responsibility of Pakistan — we are here temporarily, two years as a non-permanent member,” he told a crowded news conference at the UN Headquarters in New York, while responding to a question.

“I think it’s the responsibility of the Security Council itself, and particularly the permanent members to see that they take certain steps to actually get their own resolutions implemented,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar said.

 “That’s the way forward,” he added. Ahead of the news conference, the 15-member Council met and approved the programme of work for the month of July. “Our approach is firmly rooted in the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, peaceful settlement of disputes, sovereign equality, respect for international law and multilateralism,” Ambassador Ahmad told UN corps of correspondents. Pakistan, he said, will convene two signature events during its Presidency –a high-level debate on “Promoting International Peace and Security through Multilateralism and Peaceful Settlement of Disputes,” scheduled for 22 July, and on UN-OIC cooperation on July 24. Both debates will be chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Senator Ishaq Dar. Moreover, DPM/FM Dar would also preside over the quarterly open debate on Palestine on July 23.

“The debates stem from the reality that today’s crises often emerge from unresolved disputes, the erosion of international obligations, and the underutilization of peaceful means enshrined in Chapter VI of the Charter,” the Pakistani envoy said.

On Kashmir, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad also said that all issues on the Security Council’s agenda can be discussed any time and the decades-old dispute over the Himalayan state was on agenda under India-Pakistan question.

The UN Security Council has pronounced on it in several resolutions that, among other elements, grant the Kashmiri people their right to self-determination, he said. “It is festering dispute, It has several dimensions,” the Pakistan envoy said, noting its peace and security dimension, political and legal dimension, and it also human rights dimension. “This is an issue that has been there unresolved; It is a cause of tensions and frictions between India and Pakistan. It is impeding development of friendly relations in our region. It is time that this be addressed,” he added.

LAHORE: Chiding the speaker for acting like a dictator under pressure, Opposition Leader in Punjab Assembly Malik Ahmad Khan Bhachar said the opposition would continue fighting for the cause of the people of Punjab.

“Our patron-in-chief has appreciated PTI’s 26 MPAs for challenging the pharaohs and instructed them to hold assembly outside the [assembly] premises and continue giving tough time to the fake-mandated government,” Mr Bhachar said while speaking at a news conference at Lahore Press Club on Wednesday. He said the PTI would suggest amendments to the proposed Punjab Local Government Act.

He said the PTI would continue protesting ‘irregular’ payments of Rs10 trillion as reported by the Auditor General of Pakistan and added that this ‘Form-47’ government also got Rs509 billion supplementary budget with less than 23 members in the House.

“PML-N MPAs came in droves to listen to CM Maryam Nawaz’ speech but their number reduced to less than 25, when supplementary budget was passed,” he said.

Says PTI to suggest amendments to proposed LG law

Bhachar said the speaker suspended 26 opposition MPAs for protesting during CM’s speech but he had conveniently ignored the treasury MPAs’ protest and cheap slogans, when opposition women MPAs were speaking in the assembly. He said the speaker had neither notified the opposition parliamentary leader nor gave floor to the opposition leader despite repeated requests.

He said he had written a letter to the speaker to provide evidence explaining that the opposition members broke down microphones.

He said the opposition would approach courts despite knowing that the courts were not giving justice to the opposition.

The opposition leader condemned the federal government for increasing petroleum prices and added that this increase would instantly shoot up the cost of daily-use items.

Acknowledging the negligence in death of 17 persons in Swat River, Opposition Leader in Punjab Assembly Malik Ahmad Khan Bhachar said Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz should also be punished for the death of 20 children in a Pakpattan hospital.

“Those negligent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in Punjab should be punished,” Mr Bhachar said.

Answering a question, the opposition leader said the political parties do keep their doors open for negotiations. He said party President Chaudhry Parvez Elahi was holding meetings and issuing instructions to them.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2025

LAHORE: The Crime Control Department (CCD) of Lahore police on Wednesday arrested a known TikToker and his 13 security guards for “public display of weapons”.

The police acted when the suspects blatantly violated the Section 144 imposed by the Punjab government to ensure peace in the city during Muharram.

As per CCD sources, TikToker Kashif Zamir, along with his armed bodyguards, traveled on a city road in a double-cabin vehicle. His team recorded video clips showing the weapons displayed by his guards and uploaded the same on social media.

The police say such conduct causes harassment to the public.

A CCD official says the police arrested the TikToker in a raid and recovered firearms from him and his guards, lodging cases against them.

He says the police also recovered videos of the TikToker showing him traveling on different city roads, along with his heavily-armed security guards. The CCD official says that Kashif Zameer is a habitual offender as he was also arrested in the past on the same charges.

Later, a video statement of the TikToker, recorded in police custody, appeared on social media wherein he apologised for taking law into his hands.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2025

Vehari  –  A citizen staged a unique protest against the withdrawal of electricity subsidies for those consuming over 200 units by wearing a suit made of electricity bills and hanging a meter around his neck, an image that quickly went viral on social media and sparked widespread public outrage. People echoed former minister Khawaja Asif’s famous line, “There should be some shame, some decency,” as criticism mounted against the elite who receive thousands of free electricity units while the poor are burdened with heavy bills for minimal usage. Mukhtar Ahmad Bhatti, senior member of the Chamber of Small Traders, called the inflation “economic genocide,” while analyst Murshid Abdul Aziz Bhutta said the system is designed only for the rich. Advocate Rana Muhammad Sajid termed the policies unconstitutional and against fundamental human rights; Advocate Ms. Saima Noreen said punishing the poor and rewarding the rich is oppression, not justice; and Advocate Ms. Samer Fatima added that the public’s patience has run out and now rulers must answer.

Laborers, farmers, and vendors lamented that they can neither afford electricity nor feed their children, saying the system is out to destroy them. The public is now demanding fairness in the power system, equal subsidies for all, and an end to free units for the privileged.

An explosion in northwest Pakistan killed at least four local government officials and police Wednesday, an officer told AFP, in an attack claimed by a branch of the Islamic State group.

“One senior government official, along with another government official and two police officers, were killed in the attack. Eleven people were wounded,” said Waqas Rafiq, a senior police official stationed in Bajaur, a city near the border with Afghanistan.

The officials were travelling in a car in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when “the attack happened in a market in Bajaur city,” Rafiq added.

Hours later the Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) jihadist group claimed to have detonated an explosives-laden moped that targeted the vehicle in which the officials were traveling.

The deadly blast came four days after 16 soldiers were killed in the same province in an attack claimed by the Pakistan Taliban, a group which is very active in the area.

Around 300 people, mostly security officials, have been killed in attacks since the start of the year by armed groups fighting the government in both Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, according to an AFP tally.

Last year was the deadliest in a decade for Pakistan, with a surge in attacks that killed more than 1,600 people, according to Islamabad-based analysis group the Center for Research and Security Studies.

Pakistan has witnessed a sharp rise in violence in its regions bordering Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021, with Islamabad accusing its western neighbor of allowing its soil to be used for attacks against Pakistan — a claim the Taliban denies.

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has underscored the importance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to Pakistan’s economy — contributing around 40 per cent to GDP, 25pc to exports and nearly 78pc of non-agricultural employment — while noting that their access to formal finance remains disproportionately low, with only a small share of private-sector lending directed towards them.

The minister stated this while participating in a high-level panel discussion titled ‘Scaling up SME Finance’ hosted at the International Business Forum, held on the sidelines of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Seville, Spain.

Mr Aurangzeb highlighted that Pakistan has adopted a whole-of-government approach to address these challenges and unlock the full potential of the SME sector.

“As part of its strategic vision, the government aims to raise SME financing to 17 per cent of total private-sector credit by 2028. This target is designed to bring Pakistan more in line with comparable South Asian economies such as Bangladesh and India, and with global emerging market benchmarks,” he said.

He noted that the government is actively working through the central bank to encourage commercial banks to expand their SME lending portfolios.

This expansion is expected to enhance the contribution of SMEs to GDP, exports, employment, youth and women’s digital empowerment, and overall financial inclusion—laying the foundation for sustained and inclusive economic growth.

Climate financing

Meanwhile, addressing a high-level roundtable on ‘Swapping out Debt for Development’, Mr Aurangzeb emphasised that Pakistan’s finance and climate change ministries are working closely to align their decisions for the best possible outcomes for the population, which is increasingly burdened by economic and climate-related pressures.

The roundtable, organised by advisory firm Tabadlab, saw discussion on how debt-for-climate swaps can help countries like Pakistan tackle the twin challenges of debt and climate vulnerability, while aligning with Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. Such mechanisms may offer critical pathways for creating fiscal space while advancing environmental objectives, a statement issued after the event said.

With input from APP

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2025

THE chairman FBR has been in the news lately, as the fiscal year closes and we tally up the revenue performance of his department to see how much blood they were able to draw from the stone that is this country’s base of compliant taxpayers. A few things stand out.

First is the sharp increase in tax collections in FY25 despite very heavy headwinds. Revenue increases in a year of anaemic growth and slowing inflation are very hard to fetch, but they seem to have found a way to do it nonetheless, a fact the chairman went to great pains to highlight. In one of his public presentations, he showed that FBR tax collection increased by Rs2.4 trillion from last year.

The final figure was still below the target, despite the latter having been revised downward multiple times during the year. But that is not the big story here. That is a matter between the government and the IMF and does not really concern the rest of us.

What we have to ask is this: where did all this incremental tax revenue come from? The chairman has emphasised that this year much of the revenue increase was not due to what they call ‘autonomous growth’, which is revenue increase that comes from raw inflation and economic growth alone. That revenue increase does not lead to an increase in the ‘purchasing power’ of the government, since its spending rises correspondingly, especially when inflation is the driver of revenue growth.

This year, according to him, the bulk of the revenue increase came from what they call ‘new tax measures and rates’, as well as ‘improved compliance’. Between these two heads, something like Rs1.67tr was collected, according to FBR figures, accounting for more than two-thirds of the total incremental revenue collection.

Even the ‘people’s representatives’ were more worried about the rights of non-filers and fraudsters than of compliant taxpayers.

So far so good. New tax measures and heightened tax rates alone brought in something like Rs805 billion, but nowhere can one find a breakdown of this figure to learn which revenue heads contributed the bulk of this increase. But take a quick look at the July to March figures released by the finance ministry on its website. In the July to March period, the data there shows an increase of Rs1.7tr in FBR tax collection, of which Rs863bn comes from ‘direct taxes’. Based on reporting from earlier this year, you can be certain that an appreciable portion of this increase comes from taxes paid by salaried individuals.

And therein lies the rub. The chairman is keen to tell us that he has performed a great feat and raked in incremental revenues under very difficult conditions. But he is not willing to give us a breakdown of where this money has come from. If he were to do so, the data would most likely show that the FBR has pulled off this great feat by squeezing more from a few, rather than increasing the base of taxation. They have succeeded in pulling blood from a stone. If this is not the case, they should release a breakdown, which shows the largest revenue heads that have contributed to the Rs805bn increase in collection from ‘new taxes and rates’.

Their one initiative to try and broaden the base was the so-called Tajir Dost Scheme, and although the finance minister went on record as late as February saying that he stood by the scheme, despite its rather dismal performance till then, they had to admit defeat and abandon it barely a month later. Revenue collection under that scheme was then replaced with withholding taxes on unregistered retailers, which they say led to a large increase in retailers registering themselves, and in some cases even a net positive tax liability.

This is the crux of the problem that needs to be highlighted over and over again. Salaried people have seen their purchasing power burn in the inflationary fire that raged ferociously from 2021 to 2024. As soon as that fire was doused they saw a raft of taxes. First, they had to pay for the state’s excesses in pushing growth via reckless money supply creation. Then they had to pay for bridging the state’s fiscal deficit.

At least some of the money they have been forced to contribute has gone to increase compensation for government servants (including military officers) and ministers. The state shields itself and its personnel from the effects of its own excesses and incompetence. And compliant salaried people, who belong to all sections of the middle class, have to foot the bill.

What makes this possible is the near total absence of any voice that salaried people have in the country’s policy conversation. When the Finance Bill 2025 came up for discussion in the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance, objections were raised on the tax on solar panels, the powers of arrest for FBR officers and the provisions that would make it more difficult for non-filers to buy and sell high-value assets.

But there was barely a whisper about salaried people or taxes on business income, which hits small and medium enterprises harder than large manufacturers. Even the so-called people’s representatives were more worried about the rights of non-filers and tax fraudsters than the massive burden placed on compliant, honest payers.

Now begins round two of this charade. For the fiscal year which began this week, they have to pull this feat off one more time. FBR revenues have to rise by Rs2.4tr all over again, but already, the stone has nearly been bled to death. Some amount of this will come from ‘autonomous growth’ though that amount will be smaller due to lower inflation. And the rest, dear reader, will land on your doorstep, regardless of how you feel, and irrespective of what magic trick they are claiming they intend to pull off next year. Happy new fiscal year to all my readers.

The writer is a business and economy journalist.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2025