London - 02 November 2005...Mr Altaf Hussain, founder and leader of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) has said that it appears that the commitment of the International Community would not be sufficient to meet the cost of reconstruction and rehabilitation of the earthquake affectees despite the United Nations appeal. He said that if imposition of taxes was considered in the Federal Cabinet or in National Security Council, burdening the common man by imposing new or increasing the existing taxation would be unfair and instead it is now inevitable to impose taxes on agricultural income and vast land holdings of the big land lords who have never paid any taxes either on their agricultural income or their vast land holdings.
Mr Altaf Hussain further stated those elitists personalities who had their bank loans written off should be identified and all those monies be recovered on SOS basis from the squanderers of the national resources taking advantages of their status while monies looted and deposited into foreign accounts must also be repatriated on SOS basis and put back into the national exchequer to meet the challenges confronted as a result of the disastrous earthquakes. He added that it is a travesty of justice that these looters and plunderers had never been taken to task but instead allowed to go Scot Free while ordinary citizens were imprisoned on trivial issues and their death sentences were not even commuted into life imprisonment. He said that time has now come to treat all the members of the public in equality and the political expediency should be shredded off.
Mr Hussain demanded of the people at the helm of affairs to also reduce non-developmental expenditure forthwith.