Mustafa Kamal had imposed the most controversial tax on Karachiites
Kamal was given Rs300 billion by Musharaf to change Karachi
By Aslam Shah
KARACHI: The cash-starved Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) is in a fix whether to print the Utility Tax in its bills to the consumers or not because the tax experts warned it may lose even its legitimate revenue.
Due to acute financial crisis, the KMC high ups ordered the printer to print arrears of Utility Tax, a tax imposed by former City Nazim, Mustafa Kamal illegally and without any TOR (terms of reference), on the bills being circulated to the Karachiites. The residents of Karachi had outrightly rejected the illegal tax. Mustafa Kamal who was heavily pampered by Pervez Musharaf had imposed most controversial tax to pocket some extra bucks by extorting karachiites on the pretext of completion of development projects. It is pertinent to note that Pervez Musharaf had given Rs300 billion to Mustafa Kamal for Karachi’s development, an amount that could have changed the dilapidated Karachi into one of the most modern cities in the world.
Interestingly, the private contractor has refused to print the so-called Utility Tax on the bills fearing he may lose the original revenue. The budget target of taxes was revised downward by Rs1 billion as the KMC could not meet the target after three years i.e. 2012-13.
These taxes were meant for the development of Karachi but the KMC could never meet the target. Now the figure consumers have risen to 1.365 million, out of which only 13 thousands are paying taxes regularly. Most of taxes are being recovered from District Central on account of property registration and transfer of houses, flats, shops and industries.
It is irony that KMC has miserably failed to collect even a single penny from 550 katchi abadis sprung up all around the city while some are located in heart of the city. KMC officials claimed that these katchi abadis even have houses built by their owners as big as 1,000 square yards and their price ranges up to Rs30 million each. They said that almost sixty percent of citizens are residing in more than 550 katchi abadi who are not paying a single penny on account of any kind of tax and if the taxes are collected from these katchi abadis the city and KMC may not remain dependant on any other source of revenue. Not only that but almost all industrial areas including North Karachi, Federal B area, Landhi, Korangi, Orangi and SITE are also not paying municipal taxes.
Furthermore, the sources said that KMC should have receive its due share from Motor Vehicle Tax from the Sindh Government in order to complete its incomplete projects instead of trying to get peanuts through Utility Tax.
The Director Municipal Services, Khursheed Mukarram told to the Daily Times that the KMC has outsourced taxes to a private company, which is printing and distributing bills and also collecting taxes through banks. But consumers are not paying bills. He said there are 1.36 million consumers in the city but only a minimal 13000 consumers are paying taxes.
The provincial government (GOS) has intervention in financial management that has paralyzed KMC, development work has been suspended. On the other hand, massive corruption and theft in revenue in most of the departments has also badly affected the revenues of Pakistan’s biggest civic body.