Sindh vehicle woes

Letter August 10, 2019
Can we once again request the Sindh CM to push his sleepy E&T department to eliminate these two chronic ailments?

KARACHI: Having bought and registered a new car two years ago, I still drive with a temporary, stencilled, tin number plate. The Sindh Excise and Taxation (E&T) department has failed to issue a regular number plate that ought to be provided with each new registration. Needless to say that my civic reputation and my meagre financial resources have been hugely diluted in the process by the two unwarranted ‘chalans’ for the crime of carrying incorrect car number plates. Little do the police know that the real culprits reside in the CM House and the Sindh E&T department.

Thousands of other citizens suffer and have been suffering from the same ‘state-sponsored’ harassment for the past several years. Why do citizens become the victims of the government’s incompetence to perform an absolutely simple task of providing original number plates at the time of registration? All it requires is keeping sufficient number plates in inventory and issuing them on the first day of the car registration -– a normal practice in most countries.

The Sindh E&T Department has also failed to facilitate car owners to use electronic or mobile money transfer system for yearly payment of motor vehicle tax. The desire to retain archaic and torturous processes in the province of Sindh is simply incomprehensible. Can we once again, for the hundredth time, request the Sindh Chief Minister to push his sleepy E&T department to eliminate these two chronic ailments.

Naeem Sadiq

Published in The Express Tribune, August 10th, 2019.

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