By: Samia Baig
Naya Pakistan is basically a philosophy of bringing justice and law & order in the system of Pakistan. When we heard the word Naya Pakistan the first thought which came in our mind is Imran Khan as this philosophy was introduced by him.
Imran Khan was an ordinary person who completed his education from University of Oxford and has been a chancellor of Bradford university of England for 9 years. After completing his education Imran Khan joined Pakistan Cricket Team and played for the country for 20 years. Imran Khan was one of the leading cricket star, world class all-rounder of that time and served as a captain for 10 years. In 1992 Pakistan has won its first cricket world cup under Imran Khan’s captaincy. However just after winning the world cup Imran Khan has announced his retirement from cricket and started a new journey of philanthropy as at that point of time Imran Khan’s mother was fighting with cancer.
After her death Imran Khan realize that there are so many people who cannot afford the treatment of this disease and there should be a forum which will provide free cancer treatment, to make this possible Imran khan decided to build Cancer Hospital and after a struggle of so many years he finally build a cancer hospital in 1996 and named the hospital as Shoukat Khanum Memorial Trust Cancer Hospital which is the leading institute for free cancer treatment. After building Cancer Hospital Imran khan also realize the need of change in the democratic system of Pakistan as he believes that the people of the country have potential to move towards the development but due to lack of law & order the corrupt politicians create huddles in the development of country and only interested to fill-up their own pockets by taking bribe and getting higher governmental position not only for themselves but also for their family members. Due to these circumstances Imran Khan decided to join politics and in 1996 formed his own party Pakistan Tehreek e Insaaf (PTI) for the betterment of the country.
At that point of time Imran Khan was very popular and people loved him so much but they were not ready to accept him as a leader because since partition there has always been two political parties who ruled the country and get votes on the basis of language. Therefore it was very difficult for the people to give vote to person who belongs from different culture. So the biggest task for Imran Khan was to change the perception of people and for this he struggled for more than 20 years with tolerance and consistency.
In 2008 the first general elections came after the formation of PTI but they boycott the general elections because it believed that the election was fake and mixed with irregularities. In 2013 the party came with new energy and did a phenomenal campaign which really changed the perception of the people.
At that point of time Imran Khan developed a new hope of law & order, justice, equality and safety of minorities of Pakistani nation, by giving his heartening speeches. But during the campaign a deadly incident happened as while going on the stage for the Speech Imran Khan fell down and got seriously injured and due to which he was unable to join the election campaign. Most of the people have said that this accident was preplanned as the rivals were scared of losing the elections. However in the general elections of 2013 PTI got 7.5 million votes and got maximum seats from KPK. But Imran Khan was not satisfy with the results of the elections as electoral fraud has been done. Imran Khan asked for recounting but no action has been taken. Therefore on 14th August 2014 Imran Khan announced a protest called Azadi March over a claim of systematic election rigging by PML-N. This protest was continued for more than 4 months but during the protest on 16th December 2014 deadly attack happened in the Army Public School Peshawar in which hundreds of students and teachers were killed. Due to this on 17th December 2014 Imran Khan announced that they will not protest any more.
In 2018 PTI got 16.9 million votes and secured highest amount of seats as a result Imran Khan became the Prime Minister of Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Now this was a time of action, nobody has any idea what will going to be happened but the hopes of whole nation was on Imran Khan that he is the only one who can CHANGE the system of this country. To discuss his strategies Imran Khan talks to the nation. In that speech he clears that the main focus of Naya Pakistan is working on the development of a country, his main focus is to the emergence of the Pakistani youth because the future of Pakistan is in their hands, he also shared that he want Pakistan to be a country which was planned by Quaid-e-Azam in which there will be no difference between rich and poor, equal opportunities will be given and all religion will get equal respect and make an Pakistan an Islamic Welfare State like Riyasat-e-Madinah. In his speech he also capture the political issues, foreign relationship and investments. Imran Khan also promised that he protect the tax of public, turn the PM house into educational institute and governor house convert into public spaces to generating economic revenue.
Corruption is one of most prolonged issue all over the world especially in the third world countries like Pakistan where the corruption has that much routed down in government institutions that now it is very difficult to eliminate easily. From a Minister to a Peon everyone is corrupt at certain level.
Corruption has spoiled the economy of Pakistan completely and therefore the rate of poverty, unemployment & street crimes has increased. It also damage the image of Pakistan in front of the world. Corruption has always been a considerable problem in Pakistan but unfortunately the leaders themselves were corrupt therefore this topic as not been raised until Imran Khan came. There are many top politicians who have been involved in corruption as by the time they got power they used their power in a wrong manner and used to spend public’s money for their own luxuries. They were not only spending the money for their luxuries but also doing money laundering. The politicians have also been involved in illegal Sui-Gas and electricity supply, illegal possession of land and the hiring of employees in government offices on the basis of languages.
Currently there is a very big issue going on in Pakistan which is the transaction of a huge amount of money in fake bank accounts. According to the reports more than 2000 bank accounts has been opened and transaction of 4000 crores Rupees has been done to hide the black money. NAB has conducted more total 26 inquiries and FIA is investigating more than 30 people in relation to money laundering from false accounts, including Asif Ali Zardari and his sister Faryal Talpur.
These illegal activities has affected the country very badly as due to these activities Pakistan might become blacklisted. Prime Minister Imran khan take an action towards all those situation which is held and take loan from IMF to secured Pakistan.
Pakistan has faced huge economic crisis and one of the main reason of these economic crisis is less collection of taxes due to which the flow of money in our economy has almost been stopped. Because of all these reasons the GOP has always been bound to take loans from IMF. But when the government of PTI came, PMIK took an initiative to stop all the illegal activities and introduce a law in which everyone who are Eligible to pay taxes must have to pay taxes on time otherwise government will take actions against them. Tax revenue are used for the public services and Imran Khan wanted to boost the economy of the country and for that He introduced some laws and revive the policies because He believes that without introducing an effective mechanism of taxation, country cannot stand up on its feet. PMIK said that: “If you do not pay your taxes then we can’t help in rebuilding the country, we can’t work on hospitals, schools and basic infrastructure due to lack of tax collection.” After the implementation of these policies Pakistan starts recovering the money and start paying back their loan which they have taken during the past decades.
The corrupt politicians involved in illegal activities which include smuggling and money laundering to fulfill their pockets and they don’t have any concern about the public needs or demand, many people doesn’t have any place to cover their heads or food to eat, jobs are not available, biased system should be followed or Pakistan will face downfall. But after the government of Imran khan, he tried to stop all those illegal activities through which politicians were earning handsome amount of money. PMIK realized that many people who are capable to do jobs but they are unemployed due unemployment because they don’t have any back political supports. So Imran khan started new housing scheme through which jobs or shelters were offered for those who were really needy. Inflation in Pakistan has risen to 9.1%in the 10 months the PTI has been in power. When the party took over in Aug 2018, the inflation rate was at 5.8%. In the first 10 month of the PM government’s tenures, the prices of just everything have gone up. From electricity, gas, petrol, and diesel to basic items like food, everything has become more expensive. The PTI government’s budget registered a growth of 30 per cent against the revised budget of Rs5.385 trillion for current fiscal year. The minister said that total federal revenues have been estimated at Rs6.717 trillion which is 19 percent higher than the previous year’s revenues of Rs 5.661 trillion. The collection of revenues by Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), he said, are estimated to be recorded at Rs5.555 trillion which are 12.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). He said Net Federal Revenues for the upcoming fiscal year have been estimated at Rs3.46 trillion against the revenues of Rs3.07 trillion during current fiscal year which is 13 percent higher. Similarly, according to that the federal budget deficit would be Rs3.56 trillion whereas the provincial budget surplus is estimated to be at Rs423 billion for the year.
Pakistan has struggled for decades to collect taxes with estimates suggesting that only around one percent of the 200-million strong population filed a return in 2018.