MUSHTAQ GHUMMAN

ISLAMABAD: Chairman Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan’s civil disobedience movement has not worked in accordance with party expectations as people across Pakistan are paying electricity, gas bills and other taxes in rotuine.

Chairman PTI in his address to workers on different occasions during ‘Azadi March’ in front of Parliament House appealed to the entire nation not to pay their utility bills and taxes including toll tax as part of disobedience movement aimed at putting pressure on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resign.

This correspondent talked with a number of people in different parts of the country to determine whether or not the appeal of Chairman PTI has worked. Most of the people maintained that they could not afford not to pay electricity and gas bills. “If we do not pay utility bills, our electricity and gas will be disconnected and Imran Khan will not come forward to help us,” said Kaleem Iftikhar, a businessman from Sialkot.

He further maintained that if people do not pay bills, gas and power companies will not be able to supply these utilities so the appeal of Imran Khan cannot be implemented. However, some reports suggest that the public is angered at what many believe are inflated electricity August bills. Sources in National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) told this scribe that people have not boycotted payment of bills despite PTI Chief Imran Khan’s plea.

Some consumers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) have not paid their electricity bills; but their number is very small. Chief Minister KPK Pervez Khattak is in Islamabad taking part in an anti-government protest and is demanding the resignation of Prime Minister.

Official documents reveal that Peshawar Electric Power Company (Pesco) sent bills of Rs 0.560 billion in August to the provincial government departments of which recovery was Rs 0.214 billion; which implies the provincial government made some payment. Payment from other provincial governments is similarly discouraging.

Private sector billing was Rs 84.851 billion in July of which consumers paid only Rs 74.009 billion.

Official sources told this scribe that FBR’s tax collection is progressing in a routine manner and the appeal of Imran Khan is ineffective.

Insiders in PTI argue that PTI’s top brass except Imran Khan term the disobedience movement unimplementable. Some PTI workers who recently reached Islamabad to participate in ‘Azadi March in groups, however, did not pay toll tax.