Islamabad \u2013 April 14 (Online): Economic privileges accorded to Pakistan\u2019s elite groups, including the corporate sector, feudal landlords, the political class and the country\u2019s powerful military, add up to an estimated $17.4bn, or roughly 6 percent of the country\u2019s economy, a new United Nations report has found \u2013 reported Al Jazeera on Wednesday.
\nReleased last week, the UN Development Programme\u2019s (UNDP) National Human Development Report (NHDR) for Pakistan focuses on issues of inequality in the South Asian country of 220 million people.
\nThe report uses the prism of \u201cPower, People and Policy\u201d to examine the stark income and economic opportunity disparities in the developing country \u2013 reported Al Jazeera.
\n\u201cPowerful groups use their privilege to capture more than their fair share, people perpetuate structural discrimination through prejudice against others based on social characteristics, and policies are often unsuccessful at addressing the resulting inequity, or may even contribute to it,\u201d says the report.
\nThe biggest beneficiary of the privileges \u2013 which may take the form of tax breaks, cheap input prices, higher output prices or preferential access to capital, land and services \u2013 was found to be the country\u2019s corporate sector, which accrued an estimated $4.7bn in privileges, the report says.
\nPer the Al Jazeera report, the second and third-highest recipients of privileges were found to be the country\u2019s richest 1 percent, who collectively own 9 percent of the country\u2019s overall income, and the feudal land-owning class, which constitutes 1.1 percent of the population but owns 22 percent of all arable farmland.
\nBoth classes have strong representation in the Pakistani Parliament, with most major political parties\u2019 candidates\u2019 drawn from either the feudal landowning class or the country\u2019s business-owning elite.
\nThe UNDP\u2019s Wignaraja noted that this creates a paradox where those responsible for doling out the privileges were also those who were receiving them.
\n\u201cIf with one hand you are providing a gain that benefits yourself, and taking the gain with the other hand, then what we have lost is that sense of separation of powers and oversight,\u201d she said.
\nAccording to Al Jazeera, The country\u2019s powerful military, which has directly ruled Pakistan for roughly half of its 74-year history, was found to receive $1.7bn in privileges, mainly in the form of preferential access to land, capital and infrastructure, as well as tax exemptions.
\nThe report noted, however, that Pakistan\u2019s military is also \u201cthe largest conglomerate of business entities in Pakistan, besides being the country\u2019s biggest urban real estate developer and manager, with wide-ranging involvement in the construction of public projects\u201d.
\n\u201cThese things are not neatly separate entities,\u201d said Wignaraja. \u201cYou do see some of\u2026 these are overlapping so you almost get a double privilege by the military. The minute in a country the military is a part of big business, it obviously doubles the issue and the problem.\u201d
\nIn a country like Pakistan, where the military continues to hold power over many aspects of governance, she warned that it would take \u201calmost a social movement\u201d to displace structures of power that were so entrenched.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a tough one that has to be taken on because this is about power politics and it would be naive of me to expect or to recommend to leaders on what to do in this respect,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cI\u2019m very clear that we can provide the analytics, we can put the impartial story out there and then it is up to the country, both the state and the people to say: \u2018Enough, here is how we need to take break up these strongly-held power groups and dynamics in this country.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Islamabad \u2013 April 14 (Online): Economic privileges accorded to Pakistan\u2019s elite groups, including the corporate sector, feudal landlords, the political class and the country\u2019s powerful military, add up to an estimated $17.4bn, or roughly 6 percent of the country\u2019s economy, a new United Nations report has found \u2013 reported Al Jazeera on Wednesday. Released last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120803,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n