Growing poverty

For centuries, we have been instilled with the idea that the people collectively represent a nation. However this seems to remain far from the truth. Dr Hafiz A Pasha, the country’s renowned economist, estimates that by the end of the current fiscal year, 10 million more people will slip below the poverty line while 8 million had already been added last year.

“The situation is very alarming,” laments Pasha while claiming that population growth and increase in the price of perishable food items, coupled with increasing taxes, energy tariffs and devaluation of the rupee, have contributed to this sharp increase in the poverty rate. PM Imran Khan has fancied China’s model of poverty alleviation as a framework to strive towards. However, when Asad Umar, the planning minister, was approached for a government version, he did not have the latest official poverty figures. Thus PTI’s claim at working on alleviation measures aimed at protecting the poor can be questioned. Even though the rupee is expected to strengthen and peak around 150 to a dollar, by the end of next year, 4 out of 10 Pakistanis will be poor. Now let that sink in.

The fact is that there is an alarming gap between the social classes in the country and statistics only represent the rich, as the majority of the wealth is only concentrated in the hands of a selected few. From data provided by the World Bank, it can be inferred that the top 18,000 people in Pakistan earn as much as the 18 million poor. The difference will keep increasing. In the case of economic crisis, the lower class is used as collateral damage while the rich reap the benefits of profit, the effects of which are now being seen. It becomes evident that economics and statistics related to growth, progress and prosperity do not accurately represent the living condition of the entire nation.

A famous Chilean poet Nicanor Parra wrote, “There are two pieces of bread. You eat two. I eat none. Average consumption: one bread per person”. It is important to look beyond statistics at the actual conditions the masses are living in.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 15^th, 2019.

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