DAWN Editorials - 21st August 2025

[zarnishhayat]

Paralysed city MONSOON havoc has yet again brought death and suffering to Karachi, with Tuesday’s ‘unprecedented’ downpour paralysing life in this unfortunate city.

Rain-related disasters have been witnessed elsewhere in Pakistan as well, particularly KP and GB, with hundreds of deaths reported in the former. But Karachi’s issues of urban flooding are unique in many ways, exacerbated by bad planning and unchecked growth. The mayor has attributed the disaster to ‘climate change’.

While the latter phenomenon has indeed contributed to erratic weather patterns, global warming alone is not the key culprit responsible for Karachi’s rain-related plight — by now, a grim annual spectacle — as soon as the monsoon clouds arrive.

Flooded streets, people trapped on roads for hours and lack of electricity for long periods during stifling weather conditions were some of the outcomes of Tuesday’s wet spell. Indeed, many parts of the city received a high volume of precipitation, but even less intense rain spells have previously brought the wheels of urban life to a grinding halt.

Disturbing visuals of motorists and bikers trapped on thoroughfares resembling raging torrents, and water entering houses and apartment blocks show that something is seriously wrong with Karachi’s drainage system. And the fixes applied to the problem do not seem to be working.

For example, a drainage system, reportedly costing hundreds of millions of rupees, was installed in the upmarket DHA area, but failed to stop flooding in the neighbourhood. DHA is controlled by a cantonment board, beyond the jurisdiction of civilian agencies. People living in low-income, low-lying areas were similarly affected.

From the august Supreme Court and independent urban experts to people venting their rage on social media — all have expressed their dismay over the fact that Karachi lacks a proper drainage system, and that the monsoon-related destruction is repeated year after year.

The fact is that the problem has been decades in the making, and it would be unfair to blame the present government alone. Successive administrations have neglected Karachi or paid lip service to its civic issues, as encroachers and land grabbers have steadily disfigured its face. Karachi’s urban issues, including the faulty drainage, are complex, and decades of neglect cannot be undone in weeks or months.

But a start must be made somewhere and the key problems of the city, primarily solid waste disposal, provision of water, a working sewerage system, fair land management, etc, which are all intertwined, must be addressed by the city’s managers and independent experts.

Moreover, a better LG system, which responds to local issues promptly and is answerable to the people, is essential to resolve Karachi’s civic woes, as multiple agencies controlling land in the city also complicates civic governance.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2025


Detention law AS the government benches in the Upper House prepared to push through the problematic Anti-Terrorism Act (Amendment) Bill, 2025, this Tuesday just in time, before the Senate was prorogued, an opposition lawmaker had asked the House: “Will this amendment make Pakistan safer, or will it weaken the constitutional rights we swore an oath to protect?” It was, unfortunately, purely a rhetorical question. The lawmakers behind the legislation could not be convinced to look at it from any angle other than ‘security needs’. “The country is burning in the fire of terrorism,” Law Minister Azam Tarar was quoted as saying, apparently in an indignant response to criticism from the opposition benches that the ATA amendments were draconian, and that a balance should be sought between the need to improve security and parliament’s duty to protect civil rights. The PML-N’s Senator Irfan Siddiqui was more direct. Amending the ATA, he argued, would “prevent crime and also curb forced disappearances and arbitrary detentions”. In other words, the government was stripping more of the public’s rights so that the state could stop the human rights abuses it has historically engaged in. It was a sad irony, no doubt.

So pressing was the need to give the armed forces and civil armed forces the power to take someone even ‘reasonably suspected’ of wrongdoing in preventive detention for three months or more that the government refused to send the bill to a committee for further consideration. This, despite an opposition lawmaker pointing out that provisions of the bill seemed to be clearly violative of existing laws and the Constitution. Indeed, the statement of objects and reasons prefacing the bill seemed to make it clear why the government was being so single-minded: “the current security situation requires a robust response that goes beyond the existing legal framework,” it said. In other words, the government was seeking a law to override the existing legal framework. It was previously pointed out through these pages that if the government was finding itself ‘compelled’ by circumstances to place constitutional rights in abeyance, the circumstances were perhaps not the real problem. It is the state of abject disrepair that state institutions have fallen into, which must be addressed instead. Clearly, the government remains intent on fighting the symptoms rather than curing the affliction. It is unlikely to attain its aims if it pursues this path.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2025
Simplified tax form THE FBR’s initiative to roll out the long-promised simplified electronic income tax return form for individual taxpayers must be commended. The final interactive form is said to have been released after consultation — and the incorporation of public feedback — on its prototype. This implies that the final form is an improved version of the earlier one rolled out last month. The simplified form is expected to facilitate salaried individuals, professionals and small business owners who fall below a prescribed threshold. Taxpayers who exceed that threshold will have to follow the standard filing process. The form incorporates an auto-fill system that integrates data on purchases, assets and tax deductions at source, ultimately generating a single return upon completion. This will facilitate taxpayers, streamline tax payment processes and make the exercise more transparent for both taxpayers and collectors. The simplified filing should address grievances against a tedious, complex process — one reason why many have been deterred from filing their returns. If the new form can remove the barriers for taxpayers, especially the salaried classes and small business owners, it could help improve tax compliance.

That said, simplification and ease of tax payments can do only so much; procedural changes will not remove the shortcomings of the overall tax regime that are at the root of our abysmally low tax-to-GDP ratio of 10pc — one of the lowest not only in the region but also the world. When powerful and cash-rich segments of the economy, such as retail, real estate, agriculture and high net-worth professionals, remain effectively outside the tax net, the burden of financing the state falls disproportionately on compliant taxpayers. This imbalance creates strong incentives for those already paying to find ways to opt out of the system, including through underreporting or short-filing their tax obligations. Ease of tax filing is crucial; but equally important is a fairer and equitable taxation structure.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2025