There should to be a law which does not allow unlimited currency flight on a regular basis.
NIDDERAU, GERMANY: This is with reference to the editorial “Rapidly rising debt” (November 9). I agree that the rich must be asked to pay towards government expenses in the form of taxes. We all know that. But another step should be to freeze unnecessary spending while one assesses the problem at hand and make plans to eliminate debt. Cutting spending can come in many forms. What comes to mind is that those items which can be considered luxury ones should not be imported. My wife was in Pakistan last week and told me that all those things which the poor do not need are seen in abundance in the markets. Things like breakfast cereals, cosmetics, automobiles, non-productive industrial goods, etc. are easily available. These imported items increase foreign exchange debt.
So, on the one hand, the rich avoid paying taxes and then also burden the exchange rate of the already weak currency. Another aspect is that the rich travel abroad fairly regularly, taking with them hard-earned foreign currency. Just walk in Oxford Street in London on any summer day and you encounter well-dressed Pakistanis shopping. I am not saying that there should be complete restrictions on such activities, but there needs to be a law which does not allow unlimited currency flight on a regular basis.
Sharif Lone
Published in The Express Tribune, November 11th, 2013.
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