Underprivileged to be main losers in SMS tax

Monday June 22, 2009

According to a report of App, out of the over 80 million mobile users, about 50 million are young people between the age of 10 and 25 years; 40 million of them use SMS and most of them consist of youth. Many of those who could not afford to expand their businesses relied on SMS to access a wider clientele. Zaheer, a plumber who runs a mobile plumbing business, says he saved up for months to purchase a cellphone so that he could text message with his clients. ‘It worked very well for me. I would be at my client’s place as soon as I got a text message.’ Now Zaheer is skeptical whether his business will have such a smooth flow.’ I was saving a lot of money but I don’t know how it is going to be anymore,’ he said looking slightly frustrated.

Text messaging has played the role of personal integration as well as public mobilisation. During mass protests such as the long march that led to the restoration of judiciary, we saw that galvanizing of the youth was made possible through networking platforms such as the internet and cellphones. It has been a recent global phenomenon that has changed the face of political games as seen during Obama’s election campaign, and most recently during Iran’s elections. It is probably why these avenues are the first to be blocked by the state during an event of possible ‘rebellion.’ Abeer Hamid, 22, in Lahore is the main information dispenser of Student Action Committee and sends a long list of subscribers’ latest updates on the youth initiatives during protests, rallies and gatherings. Abeer terms the imposition of the 20 paisa tax on SMS a hindrance to communication.

‘This will definitely affect us — I mean it is going to affect me.’ But Shaukat Tarin, the adviser on finance, callously said at a press conference that ‘if they have so much money to spend on texting then they can spend a little more on this.’ An illogical and baseless justification for the tax imposition. In Pakistan where there are layers within layers of socio-economic classes, the largest bulge of our population, namely the youth, has had to suffer the consequences of poor governance. As the competition in the global market becomes cut throat, the marginalised youth can hardly keep up in the local arena. Independent of other obvious reasons such as the lack of investment in the education sector, the digital divide is a worrying aspect as well. Texting although a stem of digital technology, is nonetheless a very important way of accessing information and communicating with around 500 million SMS traffic on a daily basis across the country. It seems the government has identified a couple of industries as preys for extracting money from, namely the telecom industry and the petroleum sector which is the usual scapegoat.

The state should realise the massive investment of the telecom industry and should protect such industries instead of exploiting them. The telecom industry is concerned about this tax and worries that their youth targeted phone packages will be ‘killed.’ But despite the possible imposition of a tax which is an increase of 300 per cent on each SMS, some feel it will not make a difference to their lives at all, and that although a nuisance they will nonetheless continue to text message at the same rate. ‘I think the only thing is that the Zardari jokes will finish,’ chuckles Samad Khurram. However, a more concerning aspect is the accountability of the tax. ‘I just want to know where our tax money is going to go,’ says Maham Ali, a student in Islamabad.

(Dawn)