UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

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BBC News - Stop UK aid to Pakistan unless taxes increase, urge MPs

Stop UK aid to Pakistan unless taxes increase, urge MPs

The UK plans to double the amount of aid it provides to Pakistan
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The UK government should withhold extra aid to Pakistan unless it does more to gather taxes from its wealthier citizens, a group of MPs has said .
The International Development Committee said British taxpayers should not be paying for health and education in Pakistan while rich Pakistanis were paying little tax.
They also urged ministers to ensure aid was focused on anti-corruption efforts.
Ministers said they were committed to ensuring tax reform took place.
The government is planning to double the amount of aid it provides to Pakistan from £267m in 2012-13 to £446m in 2014-15, making it the largest recipient of UK aid.
The committee accepted there was a “powerful case” for maintaining bilateral aid to Pakistan, which has “long-established ties” with the UK and “real poverty and serious security problems”.
**‘Pakistani elite’**But the MPs said they could not support the use of British taxpayers’ money for aid in Pakistan without ensuring the new Pakistani government, to be elected in May this year, was committed to reforming the tax system.
The report said Pakistan had a lower-than-average tax take, with only 0.57% of Pakistanis - 768,000 individuals - paying income tax last year.
Continue reading the main story“Start QuoteWe cannot expect people in the UK to pay taxes to improve education and health in Pakistan if the Pakistani elite does not pay meaningful amounts of income tax”
Sir Malcolm BruceCommittee chairman
The committee also criticised the Department for International Development (DfID) for failing to put corruption, frequent absences in the rule of law and low tax collection at the top of the agenda for its governance work in Pakistan.
Lib Dem Sir Malcolm Bruce, chairman of the cross-party committee, said: "The committee is concerned that not enough tax is raised in Pakistan to fully finance improvements in the quality of life for poor people.
“In particular, we cannot expect people in the UK to pay taxes to improve education and health in Pakistan if the Pakistani elite does not pay meaningful amounts of income tax.”
The MPs recommended that as a “significant friend” of Pakistan the UK should “do all it can” to encourage effective tax collection.
It called on DfID to work with other donor countries and the International Monetary Fund to push for reform of Pakistan’s tax system and back a national campaign to build domestic political momentum for change.
The committee also said corruption was “rife” in Pakistan, where society was “based on patronage and kinship networks”.
**‘Not sustainable’**Sir Malcolm added: "It is vital for Pakistan, and its relations with external aid donors, that the new government provides clear evidence that it will own and implement an effective anti-corruption strategy.
“DfID must likewise set measurable targets against which to measure and confirm positive impacts arising from effective investment in anti-corruption measures.”
A spokesman for DfID said the report “rightly sets out the urgent need for the incoming Pakistan government to deliver tax reform”.
He added: "Reform must start from the top down, with elected politicians and the wealthiest in Pakistan showing a commitment to reform by submitting tax returns and paying tax due.
"The UK government is clear that UK development assistance in Pakistan is predicated on a commitment to economic and tax reform and to helping lift the poorest out of poverty.
"We have made it clear to government and opposition politicians in Pakistan that it is not sustainable for British taxpayers to fund development spend if Pakistan is not building up its own stable tax take.
“Following the election we will make available practical assistance to the incoming government to help deliver reform of the Pakistan tax system and work with the IMF, but tax and economic reform must take place.”

I agree…

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

Amen!

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

Fantastic!

I don't want my taxes from income, business rates and all the other crap I give to the government to be paid to Pakistan/

Not until the government changes the inherent cultural attitudes to paying their fare share.

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

they dont need Aid. I say this all the time (any developing country). They need investments, creating jobs. Give a man a fish he eats for the day give him a rod he eats for life.

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

^
This is Pakistan, where the only two things that matter are patronage and kinship.

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

:k:

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This will be good for pakistan and uk in long term

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

We cannot expect people in the UK to pay taxes to improve education and health in Pakistan if the Pakistani elite does not pay meaningful amounts of income tax”

^ too right!

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

awesome news. aid never helped anyone just lines the coffers of the rich while the poor never see any benefit.

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

Its about time Pakistan starts carrying its own weight.

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

The main point is that the rich scums in Pakistan dont pay taxes and they should. The loot the country with both hands and when it comes time to repay the nation they refuse. UK is right, we should hold these peopel to account.

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

Good step by UK

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

We dont need AID if PTI comes into Power Insha Allah

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

may be they should start by not giving asylum to all the terrorists, murderers and corrupt people of Pakistan. and repatriate the illegal money they all have in UK.

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

But I think that aid would still be given since we are "friends". Things might be different if UK's sarkar amreeka decides to pull the plug.

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

Excellent... Hope other countries put such stringent restrictions on "aid" and force the leaches of Pakistan to pay their fair share.

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

Wait and see what happens after they leave Afghanistan and Pakistan's aid is no longer required.

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

^ Hence my quip about the US aid. The writing is on the wall as far as US aid goes. Obama admin is already upset that Pakistan didn't take the initiative when they offered strategic partnership for abandoning designs that US doesn't approve of. This is why there is that whole "dial up the pain on Pakistan" information that Munter blurted out recently after he resigned his post last year.

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Re: UK aid to Pakistan should be witheld

British aid is ‘helping fund re-election campaign of Bhutto family’ in Pakistan - Telegraph

Britain is giving £300m of taxpayers’ money to a controversial programme of cash handouts in Pakistan which is accused of bankrolling the re-election campaign of Benazir Bhutto’s former party.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari stands in front of a portrait of his dead wife Benazir Bhutto Photo: AFP/Getty Images

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01768/Crilly_60_1768732j.jpg
By Rob Crilly, Islamabad

3:08PM BST 01 Apr 2013

In evidence to a parliamentary inquiry, a leading development economist said the Benazir Income Support Programme was being used to buy support for Mrs Bhutto’s widower, President Asif Ali Zardari, and his party.

Ehtisham Ahmad, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, said Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID) was pouring money into a scheme riven by “clientelism”.

“It is not stolen to the extent to which previous cash transfers were stolen, but this is the mechanism - which is funded partly by DFID - to make friends and influence people. This is the re-election campaign of Mr Zardari, which is funded by DFID,” he said. “Well done.”

The Select Committee on International Development is due to publish its report into aid to Pakistan on Thursday.

Britain has rapidly expanded its assistance in recent years. Pakistan is on course to become the biggest recipient of UK aid, receiving £450m per year by 2015.

The programme has many critics. Pakistan has one of the smallest tax bases in the world and two-thirds of its politicians pay no income tax at all, yet the country can still afford an expanding nuclear arsenal.
Cash handouts are one of the key planks of British aid. Half the £300m will be given to families to help lift them out of poverty, while the rest will be used to encourage parents to send children to school.
A checklist is used to identify those in need and the government of Pakistan is spending more than £2bn over the next five years.
The programme is despised by opposition parties who complain its name means many people believe the money comes from the Bhutto family rather than the government.
It has been hit by repeated allegations of corruption and claims that officials from the Pakistan People’s Party – now led by Mrs Bhutto’s son Bilawal – have obtained lists of beneficiaries for follow-up visits in which families are told to remember where the cash has come from when they vote.
“The fact that it is called Benazir Income Support Programme tends to suggest that there is what is called clientelism,” Dr Ahmad, who held several senior positions at the IMF, told The Daily Telegraph. “The more you give the more benefit there is to the party that bears the Bhutto name.”
Critics such as Imran Khan, the former cricketer who has made corruption the centre of his push to become prime minister](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8790103/Imran-Khan-international-aid-is-propping-up-Pakistan-corruption.html), also warn that Britain’s surge in aid will not produce sustainable results. The hundreds of millions of pounds remove any incentive for the Pakistani government to introduce unpopular tax reforms, he says.
He told The Daily Telegraph that BISP was nothing more than a scam to “buy votes”.
The issue has become particularly heated as the country prepares for elections on May 11.
The biggest opposition party, the PML-N, said it would overhaul the scheme and rename it the National Support Programme to avoid the taint of politicking. In a dossier of allegations, it concluded the programme was riddled with “rampant corruption, nepotism and embezzlement”.
A spokesman for DfID said the UK was politically impartial in Pakistan.
“Our development assistance is based on need and effectiveness, not politics,” he said. “The Benazir Income Support Programme Act was unanimously passed and supported by all political parties in Pakistan.”