Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain said on Wednesday that the disparity between the wealthy and the impoverished is swiftly widening. The newly elected government should prioritise economic equality since, in the absence of an equitable economic structure, the nation will not have a future, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the government that will be formed due to the election ought to prioritise economic equality. This is because, just like in the rest of the world, the gap between the wealthy and the impoverished is growing bigger in Pakistan as well.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that a fair economic system is needed as the divide is growing, affecting the economy and fragmenting the social system.
According to the business leader, except in a few nations, capitalists have taken control of the world’s economies, so their assets are growing at an incredible rate while the general population is getting poorer. He added that due to the prevailing economic system, the wealth in almost every country is concentrated in a few hands, and if this trend is not stopped, world peace will end.
He furthered that during the COVID pandemic, almost all countries not only printed excessive currency but also adopted policies that greatly increased the wealth of capitalists.
In Pakistan, too, under the guise of the welfare of the people, the wealthy class was rewarded. After the pandemic, many countries stopped printing excessive currency, which caused inflation to decrease globally. Still, in Pakistan, due to the devaluation of the rupee, fiscal deficit, and current account deficit, inflation broke all previous records.
Mian Zahid Hussain further said that the increase in the wealth of many of the world’s richest people by more than 100 per cent annually is surprising, revealing the weaknesses of the current economic system.
He informed that half of the world’s population owns only two per cent of the resources, while large multinational companies have been earning an average of 52 per cent annual profits for the past three years.
In some countries, it is not allowed to increase the wealth of the rich by squeezing the masses, while in all the remaining countries, it has become the norm.
He observed that the present economic system can only function if the full tax is collected from influential companies instead of continuous tax concessions, the power of the corporate sector in the country is not allowed to grow beyond limits, and exploitation of the people is not allowed. The welfare of the people should be considered, and profit limits should be set instead of open profiteering; otherwise, despair, unemployment, ignorance, and anxiety will continue to increase in society.
He warned that the consequences of such frustration would be very serious, and the rich would not be able to escape the masses’ rage.