RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: Members of major political parties in provincial assemblies and Senate on Wednesday joined hands for making girls education a political priority as well as for an equitable system of taxation.

The provincial lawmakers and senators gathered at the launch of a research report titled ‘Domestic Resource Mobilisation in Pakistan: Exploring Avenues for Financing Girls’ Education. The report was prepared by Oxfam in Pakistan and Institute of Social and Policy Sciences (I-SAPS).

In a discussion that followed the report launch, Senator Mohsin Khan Leghari said that without domestic resource mobilisation, especially equitable system of taxation, the federal and provincial governments have failed to respond to the growing needs of important public services such as education and healthcare.

In context of girls education service delivery, I-SAPS research fellow Ahmad Ali explained that Pakistan at the moment is facing a serious challenge with approximately 24 million out of school children of whom majority are girls, huge backlog on provision of missing facilities in schools, and declining quality of education.

Girls’ net enrolment rate stands at around 50 per cent only, which is much lower when compared to that of the male net enrolment rate. Similarly, he added, Pakistan has the world’s third-highest number of newborn deaths (194,000 in 2010).

The maternal mortality in the rural areas is nearly twice as in urban areas of Pakistan, i.e. 319 women out of 100,000 die due to pregnancy related complications in the rural areas in contrast to 175 in urban areas.

He highlighted that the failure in provision of basic public services, like education and healthcare, is largely spurred by the state’s inability to introduce a pro-poor and equitable system of taxation and mobilising domestic resources for sustainable development. “However, the existing taxation system appears to favour the elite and puts extraordinary burden on poor and weak segments of society by levying considerably more indirect taxes (55 per cent) on necessities as compared to direct taxes (45 per cent) on the incomes of the affluent,” he added.

I-SAPS Executive Director Dr Salman Humayun said that Pakistan’s resource base is quite narrow with only 0.3 per cent of the population paying income tax.

“Out of around 7 million eligible tax payers, only half a million are taxpayers,” he said, offering an example that Pakistan’s agriculture sector employs around 45 per cent of the total workforce with a share of 22 per cent in

GDP, but contributes only 1.2 per cent in the tax revenue.

“The prevalence of tax exemptions is another significant feature, as during the FY 2015-16, the government of Pakistan gave exemptions to the tune of Rs 394.5 billion,” said Dr Humayun and added, “On the other hand, there has been a constant increase in the public expenditure leading to growing budget deficits, which directly affect the quality of public services and, thus perpetuate social inequities and gender disparities.”

Country Director Oxfam, Muhammad Qazilbash said it is discouraging to note that Pakistan is performing abysmally on most of the indicators of gender justice, Pakistan ranks 141st on the Global Gender Gap Index. He said gender responsive financing of education can contribute towards establishment of social justice and systems based on equity.

In order to address the identified challenges, the research report offers an unprecedented review of the existing system of taxation, and expenditure regime in Pakistan and identifies gaps in resource mobilisation at national, provincial and local tiers. The study also proposes avenues for using resource generation and utilisation as a tool to address the inequalities in Pakistan.

Apart from Senator Mohsin Khan Leghari and Senator Muhammad Ateeq Shaikh, the participants included Punjab MPAs Rana Munawar Hussain, Lubna Faisal and Sadia Sohail Rana; Sindh MPAs Nawab Muhammad Taimur Talpur, Mehtab Akbar Rashdi and Rana Ansar; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa MPAs Sardar Muhammad Idrees, Jaffar Shah and Amna Sardar; and Balochistan MPAs Masooma Hayat and Syed Agha Raza