SWABI: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Central) head Abdul Wasi said on Monday that caravans from across the province would march towards Islamabad on September 20 to protest the levy imposed by the government.
He was addressing a sit-in organised by the Jamaat-e-Islami at Aman Chowk here. Abdul Wasi said the government had imposed a levy of Rs1.5 billion last year on poor people, labourers and factory workers.
He said JI chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman had launched a campaign against the levy, arguing that motorcyclists, rickshaw drivers, labourers and students who used motorcycles had low incomes and could not afford additional taxes.
He said the government was collecting taxes from low-income people despite the party’s position that such people should be exempt from the tax under the law. The JI leader criticised the government for imposing additional taxes on the poor while failing to reduce the salaries, perks and expenditures of rulers and parliamentarians.
Abdul Wasi said members of the National Assembly and Senate received salaries of Rs519,000 per month, in addition to travelling and daily allowances and payments for attending meetings and standing committees.
He said the rulers should first reduce their own expenditures and provide relief to the people instead of imposing additional taxes on them. Abdul Wasi said that Hafiz Naeemur Rehman had also criticised the use of expensive official vehicles by the prime minister and chief ministers, saying the government should reduce its own expenditures before burdening the poor with additional taxes.
He said the government had announced that motorcyclists would be provided 20 litres of petrol per month, but termed the proposal insufficient. The JI leader alleged that the government had come under pressure because of the movement launched by his party against the levy.
