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Week Ending : 23 August 1997 Issue : 03/34
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Law & order biggest national concern: poll
President okays Anti-terrorism Bill into Act
Rs16bn cost stops plan to introduce change
Crackdown on illegal immigrants planned
DEA has no ground to operate in Pakiatan, court told
Man claims damages for illegal detention
Literacy rate has risen from 35pc to 39pc in 5 years
Basic education project dogged by funds shortage
Saudi Arabia to release Pakistani children
Nusrat Fateh Ali passes away
Bar bodies say everything will go black
---------------------------------
$1.08bn forex reserves on July 5
CLA issuing notices to 54 defaulting companies
Enron's interest in Kohinoor Energy
50 years of fluctuating fortunes
Industrial take-off and the crash-landing
From foreign rule to foreign loans
Enabling situations breed corruption
CLA to be turned into autonomous commission
Repatriated savings assured full protection
Hubco earns net profit of Rs7.3bn
KSE 100-share index falls below 1,800 points
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Nuts! Ardeshir Cowasjee
Samson unchained Ayaz Amir
A cure worse than the disease Khalid Jawed Khan
Security at lower costs Afzal Mahmood
Eggs in one basket Mazdak
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Need to arrange funds for next year's sports agenda
500 plus in least number of Tests
Cricketers to be bound to play for country
More series with arch-rivals in future
Majid for strong cricket base
Pakistan to make token participation
Akhtar Rasool faces tough hockey agenda
World Athletic meet and Pakistan
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970823
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Law & order biggest national concern: poll
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Our Correspondent
ISLAMABAD, Aug 22: An overwhelming majority of Pakistanis say had they been
in 1947, they would have voted for Pakistan, and the country is here to
stay; yet they opine that its leaders are the most corrupt ones in the world.
According to a Gallup Pakistan's survey report, Ten question on Pakistan's
50th Anniversary, released here on Friday, Pakistanis have shown a firm
feeling of belonging about their country. The report discloses that about
95 per cent of a national sample of men and women surveyed said if they
were present in 1947, they would have voted for Pakistan. A nearly equal
number, about 93 per cent, of those surveyed believe that "the country is
here to stay and will be alive and kicking in 25 years from today."
The Gallup report says, "There is a strong mood of realism. The average
person is averse to overstatement or understatement of achievements." While
around 37 per cent believe the country has deteriorated in 50 years, the
remaining about 62 per cent believe it has improved.
It is interesting to note that the older generation, those who were living
when the country was founded, have a more favourable image of the nation's
current conditions than those who were not born then: Nearly 40 per cent of
the younger people believe Pakistan was better in 1947 than today, while
only 30 per cent of the older people share this belief.
CORRUPTION: A poor self image on the corruption issue is perhaps the most
painful dimension of today's Pakistan as 46 per cent of the respondents say
Pakistani people are more corrupt than people belonging to other nations.
An even larger number (62 per cent) believe that Pakistani leaders are, on
the average, more corrupt than the leaders of other nations.
GREATEST THREAT: Almost one in four (23 per cent) Pakistanis believes that
the greatest threat to the nation in the next five years would stem from
terrorism and breakdown of law and order.
The threat from India is a runner up: 19 per cent believe this to be the
greatest danger in a five-year perspective. Other perceived threats
include: Threat from the USA (5 per cent), unemployment (5 per cent),
over-population (5 per cent), inflation (4 per cent), corruption (3 per
cent), the survey adds.
The report says that in keeping with the current national concern about
restoring law and order in the country, 17 per cent of those surveyed say
Pakistan's top priority in a five-year perspective should be the
establishment of proper law and order; the next highest concern is about
improvement in the education system: 11 percent urged this to be the top
most priority.
TOP-PRIORITY AGENDA: Major economic issues cited by the respondents are
varied. The top-priority agenda items have been cited as: Unemployment has
been marked by 10 per cent people, inflation by 7 per cent, and overall
economic development by 6 per cent. Only eight per cent mentioned
enforcement of the Islamic shariah as the top-priority agenda item,
according to the Gallup survey.
FOREMOST ACHIEVEMENT: National Defence is seen as the nation's foremost
achievement during the past 50 years. When asked: "What is Pakistan's major
achievement in 50 years?" 15 per cent of the respondents cited achievements
in Pakistan's defence, including the 1965 war with India (8 per cent),
nuclear capability (4 per cent) and missile technology (3 per cent).
Victory in sports is another dimension that catches popular imagination: 4
per cent cited Pakistan's victory in the World Cup as its major achievement
in 50 years. Nearly 30 per cent of the respondents believed Pakistan's
achievements were not of an order to be proud of.
NATIONAL FAILURE: As the single most important failure of Pakistan over the
past 50 years, "Frequent acts of terrorism" has been cited by 17 per cent
of the respondents, followed by corruption (12 per cent) and dismemberment
of Pakistan (7 per cent).
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970818
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President okays Anti-terrorism Bill into Act
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Raja Zulfikar
ISLAMABAD, Aug 17: President Farooq Leghari has signed the Anti- terrorism
Bill, 1997, into an Act, and speedy trial courts would be set up by the end
of this month as provided in the legislation, a senior government official
confirmed on Sunday.
Siddique-ul-Farooq, Press Secretary to the Prime Minister, told Dawn the
bill had been signed by the president a day earlier and now the government
was engaged in working out modalities for implementing the law.
The Anti-terrorism Bill which was passed by both the houses of parliament
on Wednesday amid protest speeches and walkouts by opposition members in
the National Assembly as well as in the Senate, becomes law under the
Constitution when the president signs it.
It will consult the chief justices of the high courts in the appointment of
judges to the speedy trial courts as provided under the bill.
Passed in what Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif himself admitted "unusual
circumstances," the new law aims at combating terrorism, sectarian violence
and providing for the establishment of speedy trial courts to try heinous
offences.
Many opposition leaders, including the top People's Party leadership has,
however, vowed to move the superior courts because they have termed it a
draconian law which will create "parallel judiciary."
The law which has evoked reaction against its passage from opposition
parties and human rights organisations, delegates on police and the law
enforcement agencies vast powers, including the power to arrest and carry
out house search without warrant.
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970819
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Rs16bn cost stops plan to introduce change
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Our Correspondent
ISLAMABAD, Aug 18: The programme to introduce lead-free and sulphur-free
fuels in Pakistan, faces an uncertain future in Pakistan because of the
high cost of Rs 16 billion, postulated by the Ministry of Petroleum &
Natural Resources for converting the local refineries, said an official
source.
The country is already way behind the schedule that was given by the Clean
Fuels Committee to the Ministry of Environment and the federal Environment
Protection Agency in December 1995.
The 14-member Committee including eminent representatives of the private
sector had recommended import only of unleaded HOBC from April 1996.
As regards local refineries, it required them to submit by March 7, 1996,
investment costs for production of unleaded petrol and reduction of sulphur
in diesel oil and furnace oil to 0.2 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively.
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970820
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Crackdown on illegal immigrants planned
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Raja Zulfikar
ISLAMABAD, Aug 19: The government has completed broad outlines of an action
plan to improve the law and order situation with a series of steps,
including an amendment in the Foreigners Act of 1946 and a greater role for
intelligence agencies.
This step has been proposed to set things right in Sindh, especially in
Karachi, where the authorities believe that more than one million illegal
immigrants live.
Dawn has learnt that the government was briefed that the issue of illegal
immigrants was causing a lot of problems in the maintenance of law and
order. It therefore decided to insert two sub-sections after Section 13 of
the Foreigners Act of 1946. These sub sections will bar anybody from
arranging or securing or facilitating the entry of anyone whom one knows to
be an illegal entrant in Pakistan.
The other sub-section will stop people from employing anyone who does not
have a permission to stay in Pakistan. The punishment of anybody violating
the proposed law has been enhanced to ten years in prison and he or she
would not be entitled to bail.
The law will also cover the issue of Indian citizens.
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970821
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DEA has no ground to operate in Pakiatan, court told
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Correspondent
ISLAMABAD, Aug 20: The federal government on Wednesday stated that the Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) of the US had no locus standi to carry on
its operations in Pakistan without prior permission.
In response to the writ petition filed in the LHC, Rawalpindi bench, by
father of Ayaz Baloch, an employee of the DEA who was arrested by the
law-enforcement agencies of Pakistan in April this year, the federal
government in its statement through secretary ministry of defence, stated
that the DEA had no locus standi to carry on its operation in Pakistan.
"The DEA, being a foreign agency, has no locus standi to carry on its
operations in a sovereign state without the concurrence of the lawful
authority of that state", the government informed the court.
It further stated that Ayaz Baloch being a citizen of Pakistan was duty
bound not to violate the laws of the land under the orders of his foreign
employers.
Earlier, Justice Chaudhry Ijaz of the Lahore High Court, Rawalpindi bench,
reserved its judgment on the plea that trial of Ayaz Baloch by a military
court should be stayed. Ayaz Baloch was arrested for seducing a PAF officer
to smuggle heroin.
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970821
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Man claims damages for illegal detention
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H. A. Hamied
KARACHI, Aug 20: A Pakistani working in Saudi Arabia has sued the Sindh
Police and claimed damages amounting to Rs62.20 million for wrongfully
confining him for 155 days in a false case of possessing a TT pistol.
In the first-ever case filed in the court against the police for
implicating in false cases, Abdul Faheem Khan, a resident of D-141, Usman
Ghani Colony, Block-Q, North Nazimabad, has submitted that he was arrested
and challaned before the STA Court on his refusal to pay an additional sum
of Rs 200,000 to the then crimes branch police inspector Jamil Akhtar Bangash.
The plaintiff said Mr Bangash still remains at his post despite
recommendations by the inquiry officers that disciplinary action must be
taken against him for wrongly detaining a man first at the police station
and remanding him to jail custody later in an Arms case, under section 13 (D).
The two inquiries ordered by the then DIG Masood Paracha, which established
that the man was wrongly detained and wrongly charge-sheeted before the
court for non-payment of additional amount as the then inspector was not
satisfied with Rs 8,000 in cash and an almirah valued at Rs 3,000 given to
him. His sub inspector Syed Zahid Hussain Bukhari was also an accomplice in
this case along with many constables and head constables who raided his house.
Faheem Khan, who resides at Mutaim Roza Al-Bukhari, Shahr-i-Al-Saba
Al-Shams Ali-Riaz, Saudi Arabia, through his attorney Laiq Yousuf Zaid, a
resident of D-141, Usman Ghani Colony, behind Block-Q, North Nazimabad,
said the plaintiff was arrested on July 3 last year from Korangi where he
was temporarily staying with his uncle. Policemen demanded protection
money, but he could only arrange Rs 8,000 and an almirah worth Rs 3,000. On
this he was charge-sheeted for possessing a TT pistol, which provides seven
years imprisonment; a case was formally registered on July 24 last and
fictitious persons were made 'stock witnesses'.
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970817
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Literacy rate has risen from 35pc to 39pc in 5 years
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Mohammad Ilyas
ISLAMABAD, Aug 16: Gross enrolment in primary schools in Pakistan increased
from 73 per cent to 75 per cent and the literacy rate from 35 per cent to
39 per cent during a five-year period from 1991 to 1996.
This has been revealed in the first round of a four-round Pakistan
Integrated Household Survey (PIHS) carried out by the Federal Bureau of
Statistics in four areas, namely basic education, primary health,
population welfare and rural water supply & sanitation, particularly in the
context of the high profile Social Action Programme.
No clear linkages between the SAP and slight improvements in some areas
are, however, indicated by the Survey findings.
Thus, side by side with improvements in the availability of schools for
boys as well as girls, the Pakistan Integrated Household Survey has
reported slippages in major areas - e.g.:
*Net enrolment in primary schools fell from 46 per cent in 1991 to 44 per
cent in 1995-96;
*The percentage of children leaving school before completing primary level
at 16 percent remained unchanged since 1991, in spite of SAP which
completed its three-year phase in 1995-96.
Among reasons cited in respect of female dropouts was that they had to help
at home or that their parents didn't allow them to continue. For boys, the
two most common reasons are that they had to help at work or that education
was too expensive.
Evidently, SAP and, therefore, the FBS did not take into account certain
other vital factors that also contribute to continued high dropout rate,
which in rural areas is twice that in urban areas.
These factors include: high incidence of teacher absenteeism, lack of
accountability for dropout and high failure percentages, abysmally low
quality of text books in schools for the children of the majority,
ill-educated, ill-trained and inexperienced teachers in contrast to the
syllabi of British universities taught in schools for the elite where the
minimum qualification for a teacher is graduation.
The Pakistan Integrated Household Survey was undertaken by Federal Bureau
of Statistics, precisely to provide the household and community-level data
necessary to study the impact of the SAP and thus to assess, inter alia,
whether the level and quality of service provision has improved.
The PIHS is to be carried out in four annual rounds and in the first round,
some 12,640 households living in 896 different primary sampling units
(PSUs) were interviewed.
That the results seem rather skewed in order to accentuate only the
positive aspects of the situation may be attributed to the defects of the
sampling technique. "Unfortunately," Federal Bureau of Statistics has
remarked in its report, "there are very few independent and reliable
sources of data against which the representativeness of the 1995-96 PIHS
can be assessed."
In this regard, it has referred to the country's failure to hold a
population census for the last six years.
Undoubtedly, PIHS has thrown up improvements across a wide front but too
often not as projected in SAP. Thus within each province, school attendance
increased in both urban and rural areas for both males and females.
Overall, the percentage of the population aged 10 years and above that has
ever attended school increased from 47 per cent in 1991 to 52 per cent in
1995-96.
Yet, access to primary schools in rural areas has improved appreciably.
Thus there is a boys' primary school within five kilometres of 94 per cent
the Pakistan Integrated Household Survey PSUs. In the case of girls
schools, the proximity to a PSU has been reduced to five kilometres in 88
per cent of the cases.
Obviously, poverty is not the only impediment in universalization of basic
education. Thus in rural Balochistan, the proportion of households
bracketed in the 20 per cent richest segment sent their children to school,
as compared to 28 per cent of those in the poorest category.
Thus, although SAP projected the gross enrolment rate (GER) to rise to 88
per cent gross enrolment rate (GER), the actual achievement was 75 per cent.
However, enrolment rates for girls have increased from 59 per cent to 64
per cent, while rates for boys have remained virtually unchanged over this
period.
Government schools are still the main institutions that account for 79 per
cent of primary enrolment, although this figure is lower than the 86 per
cent reported in the 1991 survey. The proportion of children enrolling in
these schools is a function of low incomes.
Thus in urban Sindh, only 14 per cent of children of the richest quintile
are enrolled in government primary schools compared with 79 per cent for
the poorest quintile.
The Survey, although pretending to probe the question of quality, glosses
over the possible reasons for why even lower middle income households send
their wards to private schools.
Although not necessarily superior to government schools, this only
expresses their dissatisfaction with government-run schools, because these
are not necessarily inferior to private schools in terms of teachers' quality.
They can at least expect in the latter that their children would not be
beaten by semi-literate teachers mercilessly in order to force them to
leave school.
According to the PIHS, some 10 per cent of girls' primary schools have 50
per cent or more of their sanctioned female teaching posts vacant, while
the boys' schools are free of this problem, according to Pakistan
Integrated Household Survey .
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970823
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Basic education project dogged by funds shortage
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Correspondent
ISLAMABAD, Aug 22: The Non-Formal Basic Education Schools project, after
having achieved 75 per cent of its physical target, is in serious trouble
now because the Government provided less than 30 per cent of funds to the
Prime Minister's Literacy Commission, according to a reliable source.
Under the project approved by the Government for a five year period, 10,000
schools were to be established in the country. The Commission has since
established 7,117 schools, but it received from the Government only Rs 17.6
million in the first year (1995- 96) and Rs 112 million in the second year
against the annual allocation of Rs 218 million and Rs 241 million,
respectively.
It is, however, a five-year project involving an expenditure of Rs 1263.7
million. Nothing short of a sustained political will at the highest level
can guarantee the completion of this project, given the experience of the
past two years, the source remarked.
Since the children aged 5 to 14, admitted in these institutions, are from
the poorest families and many pick their food from the garbage, it was an
essential part of the project to provide reading material and teaching aid
to all the students.
The source said that a primary school graduate in the formal system costs
approximately Rs 6000 whereas in the non-formal stream, the expense per
child is worked out to only Rs 1444. Moreover, a wastage of resources is
proverbial in the formal system: about 4000 schools have enrolment less
than 15 students each, while another 2,000 buildings are under illegitimate
occupation of the feudals. Provision of primary schools, moreover, is
problematic also because Pakistan has nearly one lakh settlements with
populations of 300 to 400 each. Such settlements can be catered for only by
the non-formal schools.
To enable them to obtain education in secondary schools, a special
condensed non-formal primary level course has been developed for the 10-14
year age group, while the 5-9 year age group will follow the normal primary
course and are expected to complete it within 3-4 years.
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970823
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Saudi Arabia to release Pakistani children
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Our Correspondent
ISLAMABAD, Aug 22 : Ambassador of Saudi Arabia Asaad Abdul Aziz Al-Zuhair
has assured Pakistan that the Saudi government would release Pakistani
children alleged to have been involved in illegal drug trafficking.
The assurance was given by the Saudi Ambassador to the Federal Minister for
Interior and Narcotic Control Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain when he called on
him here on Friday. He assured that the children would be set free very soon.
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970817
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Nusrat Fateh Ali passes away
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Nasir Malick
LONDON, Aug 16: Maestro Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan died at the Cromwell Hospital
here on Saturday owing to kidney and liver failure followed by sudden
cardiac arrest, his doctors announced.
Pakistan's legendary musician and singer, who gave a new dimension to music
by mixing the mystic with Western beats, died at 11.57 am in the intensive
care of the hospital. Renowned cricketer Javed Miandad was at his bedside
at the time of the death as was Nusrat's manager Haji Iqbal Naqvi and many
other people who had come to visit him in the hospital.
Nusrat Fateh Ali was on his way to the United States for kidney transplant
operation but was admitted to the London hospital when his condition
deteriorated during transit in London on Aug 9.
He was diagnosed of renal failure, Hepatitis B and heart ailment and was
shifted in a private room for treatment, Dr Haroon Ali Muhammad, one of the
specialists treating Nusrat Fateh Ali, told Dawn.
Dr Haroon said the hospital had issued the death certificate to the family
so that his body could be shifted to Pakistan immediately for burial. "I
hope his body will be transferred some time this evening".
The renowned musician and singer, who was also professor of music at a US
university and had been honoured with an honorary PhD degree in music in
the United States, died on the same date on which the King of Rock Roll,
Elvis Presley, had died exactly 20 years ago. He was also composing music
for an Indian and American film.
Dr Haroon said the condition of Nusrat Fateh Ali started deteriorating at
4am on Saturday when he was shifted to intensive care unit where he
breathed his last eight hours later.
The Pakistan high commissioner to the UK, Riaz Sami, sent his
representative to the hospital after hearing the sad news.
During his ailment, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was being treated by Dr Muhammad
Yaqub for kidney problem, Prof Roger William for liver and Dr Haroon for
heart ailment.
Madam Noor Jehan's daughter, Zil-i-Huma, who is also a singer and was to
participate in a music concert at Walthamstow in London East, cancelled her
show after hearing the news of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's death. "My mother
told me not to participate in the concert no matter how much money I lose",
Zil-i-Huma told Dawn over telephone. "It is a national loss and I cannot
sing at the concert", she said. "If the concert cannot be cancelled, it
should at least be postponed".
But Attique Malik, the organiser of the concert, said the other singers
would be coming to the concert. "We are holding the concert without
Zil-i-Huma", he added. Attique said the death of Khan Sahib was a national
loss and the country had lost a person who brought immense respect to the
country. He said he had also organised a concert at the Wembley arena in
London which was to be held on Dec 6 and was to be attended by Nusrat Fateh
Ali Khan, Indian ghazal singer Pankhaj Udas and others. The front-page
advertisements of the December concert were published in all Asian
newspapers on Saturday.
Zil-i-Huma said Nusrat was a great performer and gave a new style to music.
"He was like an uncle to me as he had family relationship with us and was
very close to my mother", she said. "He would make my mother sit for hours
to listen to his new compositions".
But another concert being held at Nynex Arena in Manchester, where Culture
Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad is the chief guest, has not been postponed.
Known Pakistani singers like Ataullah Isakhelvi, Surraya Khanum and Jupiter
Group will be performing at the show which starts at 7pm (11pm Pakistan
standard time). Known compere Naeem Bukhari is also on the list of performers.
When contacted in Manchester over telephone from London, Athar Ashiq, the
organiser, said the show would be held as scheduled. "We have paid 50,000
pound for the hall, tell me what to do?" he said when asked whether the
concert would be held or not.
Athar Asiq said 80 per cent of the 20,000 tickets had already been sold and
it would be difficult to cancel it. "I have not consulted my other
colleagues as yet nor have I so far informed Ataullah Isakhelvi about Khan
Sahib's death", he added. "Hamarey tau hatoon kay totey urray huay hein",
he said.
Asked about Culture Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad, he said, he was taking a
nap in another room. He refused to call the minister on telephone in spite
of repeated requests. "You can talk with him on mobile after 6pm when this
mobile will be with him", he said.
Athar said they had organised the show to celebrate the golden jubilee
celebrations of Pakistan and it was for this reason the ticket was kept at
bare minimum - 15 pound per person as compared to Walthamstow concert in
London.
Many other small programmes being held by the Pakistani community in the
United Kingdom and other European countries have already been cancelled or
postponed. But the fate of another community mela in Birmingham being
organised by Pakistanis is not known. This is one of the biggest functions
being organised in connection with the golden jubilee celebrations.
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was invited to Bombay to perform in the Filmfare
Award function but was forced not to appear on the stage owing to the
opposition by right-wing Hindu fundamentalist leader Bal Thakrey.
NOOR JEHAN: Melody Queen Madam Noor Jahan has termed the death of Nusrat
Fateh Ali Khan a great loss to the world of music.
Noor Jehan who was here for her routine heart check-up told Dawn Nusrat
Fateh Ali was like her younger brother and a member of her family. Paying
tributes to Nusrat Fateh Ali she said: "Such artistes are born in centuries."
DISTINCTION: A song writer, musicologist and teacher, Nusrat had the
distinction of popularising a new blend of music through a mix of qawali
and technology. He won an award from the UN cultural organisation UNESCO in
1995 for his work.
Born in Faisalabad in 1948, his father, Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, a renowned
exponent of qawali, wanted his eldest son to be a doctor, but the boy
learnt to play the harmonium, secretly. His father died when Nusrat was 12.
"My father used to teach students and I used to listen. One day I was
caught listening and practising," Nusrat is reported to have told an
interviewer. He was nine years old then.
Nusrat joined his family's qawali party soon after the death of his father
in 1964. He became leader of the group in 1971 after his uncle, Mubarak Ali
Khan, became ill. A radio producer spotted him at a festival on March 23,
1965.
Nusrat Fateh Ali took the Pakistani music lovers and later those in India,
the UK, the US and several other countries by storm with his " Dum Dum Must
Qalander " and the "Night Song" which earned him instant fame.
Over the last couple years, Nusrat had become a raving craze in India and a
number of his compositions were plagiarised by some Indian film producers.
Later he was invited to India to compose the music for 'Bandit Queen', the
film based on the life of Phoolan Devi. He was composing the music for a
forthcoming Indian film "Aur Pyar Hogia" for which famous poet Javed Akhtar
has written the lyrics. Nusrat and Javed had earlier produced the famous
album, "Sangam."
Nusrat's international profile took a significant leap in the late 1980s
when he was approached by producer Peter Gabriel to sing on the sound track
of Martin Scorsese's 'the last temptation of Christ'. Gabriel's 'Real
World' has since released five albums by Nusrat.
PM, PRESIDENT GRIEVED: President Farooq Ahmed Leghari and Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif paid eloquent tributes, terming the death of Nusrat a
"national loss."
He had no parallel in the world of music, Mr Leghari said, while Sharif
noted his singular contribution to the art of qawali.
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970817
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Bar bodies say everything will go black
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Aug 16: The Sindh Bar Council has described the Anti-terrorism
Act, 1997 as another black law on the statute book and the special courts
as worse than martial law courts, passed by the parliament on the occasion
of the 50th anniversary of the birth of Pakistan.
The Council at a meeting on Saturday observed that every citizen of the
country is deeply concerned about suppressing terrorism and curbing
sectarianism as well as all sorts of violence in the country.
According to a signed statement of 12 member of the Council, in achieving
such high goals and in framing laws, maximum consensus is required to be
built in and outside the parliament through discussions and giving deep
consideration and not by suspending the parliamentary procedures and
bulldozing a bill like promulgating an ordinance.
The most disturbing factor about the way the Bill was passed was that it
violated the fundamental rights of citizens guaranteed under the
Constitution and even absolutely no consideration had been given to the
judgments of the Supreme Court as it related to appointment of judges and a
complete separation of judiciary from the executive, the resolution said.
It said that even the very recent recommendations of the Law Commission had
been kept in the closed shelves of the secretariat.
The Council members observed that from their past experience, giving free
licence to the police and paramilitary forces to shoot at sight and enter
homes and search without warrants gives rise to genuine apprehension for
victimization, which is against the spirit of Islam.
The procedure of trial as envisaged in the new law does not give a fair
opportunity to the accused and such special courts can be termed by the
national and international public opinion worse than martial law courts.
The Council felt that the absolute majority of a single party in the
parliament had provided the hope that it will be used for establishing
democratic norms, values and institutions and every enlightened person in
the country was expecting an announcement on the 50th birth anniversary of
Pakistan scrapping of all the discriminatory laws which are adversely
affecting the religious minorities and women in particular, and an
immediate announcement of at least compulsory primary education in the
country for building a modern, democratic and enlightened society at a time
when the country is entering into the 21st century.
===================================================================
970823
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$1.08bn forex reserves on July 5
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Aug 22: Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves that stood at $1.160
bn as on June 28 slipped to $1.086 bn on 5th July 1997 showing a marginal
decline of $74 million.
According to the weekly statement by the State Bank of Pakistan, the
reserves held within the country totalled $530.522 million whereas the
balances held outside stood at $556.090 million.
This is the latest official figure of forex reserves released by the SBP
that had suspended issuance of its 'statement of affairs' at the end of
June presumably to take time for finalizing annual accounts.
On June 28 the reserves held within the country were equal to $526.858
million whereas the balances held outside totalled $632.981 million.
Senior bankers link the nominal fall in the reserves to what they call
routine fluctuations taking place on account of external debt servicing and
footing of import bills by the end of a fiscal year.
It is for the sixth consecutive week that Pakistan managed to maintain the
forex reserves up $1.0 billion. On May 24 the reserves stood at $832.04
million.
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970817
--------------------------------------------------------------------
CLA issuing notices to 54 defaulting companies
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Muhammad Ilyas
ISLAMABAD, Aug 16: The Corporate Law Authority has started issuing notices
to the listed companies which have not paid dividend to their shareholders
for the past many years, an official source told Dawn here on Saturday.
"Their failure to share profits with their investors is inexcusable
because, after all, they have been clearing their bank dues, etc," the
source remarked.
The source observed that the CLA had so far identified 54 companies on the
basis of their annual audited accounts for 1996-97 which had substantial
reserves but still did not give any profit to their shareholders.
This attitude is harmful also for development of the overall capital market
as it shakes confidence of the potential investors in the equities system,
the source added.
The urgency of forcing the companies to be honest with their shareholders
is highlighted by the persistent crisis in the country's capital market
where most of the trading has been in the stocks of only two or three
companies for the past couple of years. In fact, it is the rule rather than
exception for the companies listed on the stock exchanges to withhold
dividend from the shareholders. In their parlance, evidently, the money
invested by the general public in their ventures is like free lunch they
can gorge upon without any fear of accountability.
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970817
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Enron's interest in Kohinoor Energy
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Aug 16: A multinational company has shown interest in acquiring up
to 51% equity in Lahore-based Kohinoor Energy project (KEL).
Sources close to the KEL management said Enron has offered to buy 66.45
million shares at an indicative price of Rs 21 to Rs 22 per share.
"Saigol group plans to retain the management of the project and Enron will
likely have majority representation on the board of directors," they added.
Given the cap on any fresh investment, Merrill Lynch/KSB sources said: "We
believe that the Pakistani IPPs (independent power plants) will continue to
be viewed as potential take-over targets for regional and global power
producers looking to diversify earnings and capture new markets."
A report by the brokerage houses says: "We believe that Pakistani IPPs have
a number of attractions. The regulatory environment is relatively
favourable and projects are relatively small."
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970818
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50 years of fluctuating fortunes
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M. Ziauddin
In the last 50 years, Pakistan's economy has passed through five almost
distinct phases. The most distinctive and perhaps the most gratifying,
however, remains the first one to date.
In the first 10 years, the founding fathers virtually accomplished a
miracle when they turned an idea called Pakistan into a country, carving
out in the process, an independent economy from a single sub-continental
economy.
The part of the subcontinent which became Pakistan on August 14, had no
currency of its own, no central bank and virtually no industry. It was,
however, very strong agriculturally. It was a net exporter of foodgrains
and the main source of jute and cotton for the factories located across the
border in India.
On the day the country was born, the till was virtually empty with India
refusing to transfer Rs 3 billion which were payable to Pakistan from asset
distribution under partition agreement. And down the road even before the
first decade had come to its conclusion, India unilaterally stopped the
supply of coal, the major source of energy for West Pakistan in those days.
In the face of the gigantic challenges of settlement of millions of
refugees, establishing the administrative, social and physical
infrastructures and even a war over Kashmir with India, the country not
only survived economically but even launched its first five-year plan and
conceived and drafted the second one.
The action of refusing to follow the devaluation of the British sterling
and the Indian rupee in 1949 looks rather too foolhardy from the distance
of almost 48 years, but in the given economic context this was the single
most important decision which perhaps helped the fledgling economy to
survive the odds of the day by securing more favourable terms for its
export of jute and cotton, particularly to India, and later enabled the
country to make windfall gains in the Korean war boom.
And very rightly, the founding fathers immediately imposed strict import
tariffs in order to save the exports earnings from being frittered away on
the imports of consumption goods.
These high tariffs were exploited by local entrepreneurs to set up
manufacturing industries. And by 1958, an industrial base of sorts had been
established along with a domestic financial sector of some significance.
The process of rehabilitation of refugees was almost over and a government
machinery whose writ was accepted through the length and breadth of the
country had been established.
Prelude to the break-up
Unlike the founding fathers who had nothing but an idea to work with,
General Ayub Khan, the then commander-in-chief of Pakistan army took over
in 1958, a 10-year old country on the road to becoming an economic miracle.
But thanks to Ayub, the miracle never came about. The decade of 1960s
became a decade of permits and licenses, contacts and influence, nepotism
and networks. The earnings from the economic boom of mid-50s were used to
oil this self-perpetuating machine in the name of industrialisation.
Throughout the decade, the social sectors were neglected and agriculture
was denied the needed resources, despite the much touted green revolution
of Field Marshal Ayub Khan.
Ayub Khan like Leghari had imported his finance minister Mohammad Shoaib
from the World Bank. Like now, even then Pakistanis used to look in awe at
their brethren from the World Bank. So whatever Shoaib prescribed was
regarded as a panacea.
Shoaib and the World Bank had little idea about Pakistan's comparative
advantages.
In any case, food was being made available by the Americans so cheap to the
entire world that it was considered a bad policy then to divert the 'hard
earned' resources to agriculture.
On the other hand it was considered economically prudent for developing
countries to establish import substituting manufacturing sector to become
self-sufficient or self-reliant.
These policies turned Pakistan into a net importer of food as well as an
expanding market for the capital goods of the developed world for making
low-value-added textiles and consumption goods in the name of establishing
an industrial base in the country.
The policy of permits and licenses and high import tariffs gave rise to a
handful of families owning all sources of production including
import-export houses and, even commercial and investment banks as well as
insurance companies.
At about this time, Pakistan became a favourite of the so- called free
world and its membership of SEATO and CENTO conferred on it the unofficial
status of most deserving candidate for concessional loans, called aid, from
the rich West as well as the multilateral agencies.
These loans were used by Pakistan to buy capital goods from the same
countries which provided them, so returning the loans with high profits and
becoming ever more indebted in the process.
And the aid also brought shiny weapons for our armed forces to combat the
non-existent communist threat to the region, but which we accepted
gratefully to liberate the Indian-held Kashmir.
These so-called concessional years also saw us going easy with our money in
the matter of defence expenditure. In order to enhance our defence
capabilities we kept on diverting resources year after year from the social
sectors to the defence head.
As a result, Pakistan began suffering from declining rates of literacy,
shrinking social infrastructure, expanding gaps between the poor and rich,
between rural and urban sectors and between the then West Pakistan and then
East Pakistan.
Dr Mahbubul Haq, the then chief economist of the planning commission stated
in 1968 that a mere 22 families owned 66 per cent of the industrial wealth
and controlled 87 per cent of the banking and insurance in the country. And
all this concentration of wealth had taken place in the Western wing.
As a result, the eastern wing broke away, and the residual Pakistan slipped
into a socialist tumult.
It is indeed highly educative to see that the socio-economic and political
turmoil of 1968 broke out at a time when the GNP had grown at 30 per cent,
industrial production had risen by 61 per cent, foodgrains production by 27
per cent and foreign exchange earnings at an annual rate of 7 per cent.
The second five-year plan which was finalised in 1961 was ambitious
compared to the first, had met with resounding success despite the 1965 war
with India. Two wars in two decades.
Days of reconstruction
As Pakistan entered the third decade of its turbulent history, followed
immediately by a third war, again with India, its economy underwent a
complete about-turn.
Prime Minister Z.A. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party which took office in
the last days of 1971 immediately set about fulfilling its electoral
promise and nationalised major industries, cotton and rice exporting
sector, vegetable ghee, petroleum marketing, the shipping sector and the
scheduled banks.
Contrary to the impression that is consistently being sought to be created
by his detractors, Bhutto had nationalised only 25 per cent of industrial
investment, the rest 75 per cent led by textile sector was left in the
hands of the private sector, and the entire agricultural investment too was
never touched.
In 1972, the rupee was devalued from Rs 4.74 per US dollar to Rs 11
removing the subsidy the industrialists had enjoyed because of the
over-valued exchange rate.
The removal of intricate system of multiple exchange rates, import controls
and export subsidies, together with the devaluation made production more
competitive and helped the small scale manufacturing sector. As a result,
for the first time and last (till to date) Pakistan ended with favourable
balance of trade in 1972-73.
Between 1972-77, small scale manufacturers increased their export share of
manufacturing from 14 per cent to 22 per cent. At the same time,
procurement prices of agricultural goods were raised by about 100 per cent
over the period. As a result dependence on imported food had started
showing declining trends.
Bhutto also tried to provide a solid base for industrial growth by
encouraging the growth of heavy capital goods and key industrial raw
material producing industries.
Bhutto's policies had made a lot of sense in the world of 1970s when even
Western Europe had embarked on massive nationalisation of sources of
production to ward off the seemingly on-rushing wave of socialism from
across the Eastern Europe.
Like Western Europe, in Pakistan too, the bureaucrats who were assigned the
task of running the nationalised sector very soon bureaucratised the sector
injecting in it red tapisim, inefficiencies and corruption.
Bhutto's biggest blunder was his failure to implement his land reforms with
a sense of equity and a modicum of honesty.
The salad days
When General Zia took over the country just as it was entering the fourth
decade of its existence, by toppling a democratically elected government,
he gave the bureaucracy a free hand to manage the nationalised sector which
further acerbated the situation.
Consequently, the economy continued its downhill trek in the first two
years of General Zia's rule.
In fact, in early 1979, the martial law government had to pledge its cotton
and rice crops to the now defunct BCCI bank to cover the import bill when
foreign exchange reserves had tumbled to around less than $100 million.
It was, indeed, a real touch and go situation when the Soviet troops walked
into Afghanistan to save the tottering rule of General Zia.
As the Afghan war-related dollars began pouring into Pakistan, the
industrial capacities which had been established by Z.A. Bhutto too had
begun coming on stream as a result of which suddenly Pakistan's economy
once again began perking up. And it was about this time that Pakistan also
entered into a five-year cycle of cotton boom.
The massive inflows of foreign assistance rose from $770.7 million annually
in the five years preceding Zia's martial law to $1.2 billion per annum
during the ten years of Zia's rule.
Not only this. During this period, Pakistan received on an average $3
billion annually from overseas Pakistani workers, especially those who had
gone to oil rich Arab countries. There is no information on the amount of
military aid Pakistan received from the US during this period. But it must
have been substantial because Pakistan had become a front line state in the
American jargon, fighting the 'evil empire'. One conservative estimate has
put the total inflow of earned and unearned foreign exchange including
concessional loans and military assistance during Zia period to be around
$50 billion.
But when Zia died in an air crash on August 17, 1988, there was nothing on
the ground to show for such a massive injection of resources into the
economy, except the bank balances of the families of the generals who had
handled the Afghan war-related aid, the opulence of tax evading and
infrastructure pilfering classes, and a well-entrenched culture of drugs
and guns.
In 1983, when the problem was not shortage of resources, but how to make
the best use of the flood of resources Pakistan had begun receiving in
those days, the country began experiencing the long drawn out brownouts
affecting the economy seriously.
And by mid-1980s food imports had begun rising. Rate of literacy had begun
going down steeply. Health coverage had begun shrinking further. Defence
expenditure and debt servicing had gone beyond the nation's earning
capacity. And tax culture had totally disappeared forcing the government to
make budgets with resources borrowed from banks.
Zia had inherited the fifth-five year plan which covered the period
1978-83. As a result of inflationary pressures and rising prices, the real
implementation of the Plan showed a shortfall of 30 per cent in the public
sector and around 15 per cent in the private sector.
The sixth five-year plan covered the period 1983-88 and was formulated
within the broad framework of IMF/World Bank conditionalities and the
structural adjustment programme. This also failed miserably to improve the
lot of the masses.
Zia's rule also saw sham Islamisation of the economy. Zakat was enforced in
1980 on holders of savings bank accounts and the bank interest was renamed
mark up.
Zia's economic wizard Ghulam Ishaq Khan destroyed the banking sector in the
country by borrowing for budgets at the rate of 0.5 to 5 per cent from
banks which were mobilising resources at up to the rate of 14 to 15 per cent.
He also used the resources mobilised by banks through savings schemes
carrying 18-20 per cent interest rate for financing non- developmental
activities.
The nationalised banks became unprofitable and inefficient as a result; the
cheap availability of money turned the bureaucracy into spendthrifts and
the domestic borrowing for budgetary purposes multiplied by leaps and bounds.
Since Zia had no grass roots support, he had come to depend too much on
agriculturists, industrialists and civil and military bureaucrats.
Therefore, while agriculturists were not taxed and the industrialists were
not asked to pay their due taxes, the civil and military bureaucracy was
allowed to indulge in all sorts of corrupt practices without any check or
being made accountable. Since the economy had remained in the tight grip of
the civil- military junta during Zia period, the inefficiencies,
distortions and corruption of the then economic managers had remained
hidden from the public view.
But what really happened to the economy in those days became crystal clear
when even before the results of the 1988 party- based elections were
declared, the interim government of Ghulam Ishaq Khan had agreed to enter
into an emergency arrangement with the IMF. The arrangement had carried
very harsh conditionalities in return for a paltry $830 million of
emergency assistance.
The days of hardship
The situation was so bad that even before she was handed over power,
Benazir Bhutto whose party had won the 1988 elections had to promise the
IMF representatives that she would sign the agreement finalised by the
outgoing interim government.
The economy during Zia regime had taken so much drubbing that in the decade
leading upto the Golden Jubilee Year, Pakistan seems stuck up in an
economic quagmire, despite decontrols, liberalisation, privatisation and
excessive emphasis on market economy.
The politicians who took over the government from the civil- military
bureaucracy after the advent of democracy in 1988, instead of taking
immediate corrective steps and bringing the economy back from the
precipice, seemingly tried to compete with each other in emulating their
corrupt and inefficient predecessors, pushing the economy further down the
hill in the process.
Things became more difficult for Pakistan at the end of the Afghan war in
1987, the fourth war that Pakistan fought (finally for the Americans this
time) against (at last) the Soviet communists. This war had begun early in
the fourth decade and lasted till about early fifth decade of Pakistan's
independence.
After the collapse of communism as a result of the dissolution of the
Soviet Union in 1990, the West suddenly stopped the concessional assistance
to Pakistan on the plea that it needed the resources to help rehabilitate
the economies of the newly liberated eastern European countries. At about
this time, the cotton boom cycle had also come to an end.
So, in the absence of concessional resources and declines in the cotton
crop production, things began coming unstuck despite willingness of the
successive governments to restructure the economy to make it more liberal
and remove the distortions that had crept into it over the last three decades.
In order to make both ends meet in the absence of concessional aid and
declining earnings from cotton, the successive elected governments had to
resort to massive domestic borrowings and mobilise short term foreign
commercial debt carrying very high interest rates. As a result, the rate of
inflation had remained very high almost throughout the fifth decade while
the rate of exchange tumbled steeply during these 10 years.
The economic situation is still precarious. The fundamentals of the economy
are still weak. Radical reforms are needed very badly to set things right.
A tax culture needs to be established. New priorities keeping in view the
comparative advantage of the country need to be fixed, with agriculture
taking the centre stage and agro-industries encouraged suitably.
Simultaneously, increased attention needs to be paid urgently to population
control, education and health cover. At the same time, as the economy is
being allowed to be shaped by the market forces, extra-care needs to be
taken to keep the country from falling into the clutches of the greedy
private sector from the grip of a corrupt civil- military bureaucracy.
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970818
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Industrial take-off and the crash-landing
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Sultan Ahmed
FOR A COUNTRY that began literally from scratch in industrial terms with
two significant textile mills and a cement factory, apart from a sizable
small industrial sector, Pakistan has made tremendous headway in 50 years.
The rapid industrialisation of the 1950s and even more in the 1960s with
their multiplying textile and sugar mills and vanaspati-making companies
and cement plants made a major contribution to import substitution in a
country with a large population.
Today, Pakistan has 503 textile mills of which 418 are spinning mills and
31 waste spinning mills and its weaving looms in integrated textile mills
are 9,913, in independent weaving mills 13,340 and power looms 202,000.
There are 74 sugar mills, 23 cement plants, 12 jute mills, 10 fertilizer
factories and 24 vegetable ghee units.
After playing the large import substitution role they have done for the
last 40 years very well, they could have exported far more and improved the
balance of payments if only the population had not more than quadrupled
from 30 million to 138 million and consumed a great deal of their output
and the affluent among them were not marked for their lavish consumption.
It is also true that while the large scale manufacturing made remarkable
headway until recently the small sector which was doing very well in areas
like Sialkot and Faisalabad in manufacturing and exporting sports goods,
and cutlery and surgical goods were ignored officially and they have come
down too badly instead of providing us with the many rewards of promoting
small scale industries assiduously and scientifically in a country with
large unemployment scarce capital and a good many skills.
As a result of a distorted industrial policy followed by successive
governments, while the small sector has not developed in the manner it
should have, 4,000 industrial units in the country are sick and they owe
the banks 60 per cent of the Rs 130 billion defaulted loans.
And they are asking for not only re-structuring the loans but also
additional funds as working capital, which the troubled banks find too much
to provide. If they do not help the better among such defaulters, much of
the large old loans may vanish for good.
The industries have also been hit hard by massive smuggling in a variety of
highly taxed manufactures, including electronics, tea, toilet goods,
cigarettes, and high price textiles.
Apart from what is being brought in by the professional smugglers or
'Khepias' as they are coming to be called, the two million Pakistanis
working overseas also bring in a large variety of such goods as they visit
the country, most of them once in six months to avail of the import
concessions.
Because of too much emphasis on textiles, they form 60 per cent of
Pakistan's exports. Such concentration on textile exports, inclusive of
towels, bed sheets, grey cloth knitwear, canvas and garments deterred real
efforts to explore the possibilities of large non-traditional exports.
The Export Promotion Bureau recently said non-traditional exports had gone
up by a billion dollars but when the final figures of exports for 1996-97
came, total exports had slipped last year by 5.4 per cent from the
preceding year to a mere $8.26 billion while the imports stood at $11.8
million.
The cotton textile industry thrived so far with its 18 per cent share in
the GDP as cheap cotton was available and with that the spinning mills
could produce cotton yarn and sell them at low prices abroad and even incur
the wrath of some importing countries like Japan which imposed anti-dumping
duties on our yarn while other countries like Taiwan, South Korea and even
Turkey gave notice of anti-dumping charges but did not impose them.
Since last year, all the export duties and other levies on cotton export
have been lifted and growers are free to export their cotton, but
production has fallen short of domestic needs and last year domestic cotton
prices rose far above the world prices and textile exports fell. Many
exporters found cotton too costly for yarn exports.
The industry is largely sick despite the fact that successive governments
had introduced special incentive packages for the industry in the last
three years, including a package on November 23 for the textile spinning
industry and another on December 4 for the value-added sector to boost
exports.
As a result of the sustained industrial sickness, the growth of the large
scale manufacturing sector which has been too poor, 1.53 per cent in
1994-95 and 2.57 per cent in 1995-96, crashed to a negative growth of 1.43
per cent last year. And the prospects for the current year is not too good
either due to the rising number of afflicted industries.
The small scale industry, however, is showing a sustained growth of 8.4 per
cent and raised the growth of the manufacturing sector to 1.74 per cent
last year against targeted growth of 7 per cent.
But this figure is deeply suspect as it has remained the same for too many
years together now which is not possible if a real survey of the industry
was being conducted every year or even once in three years.
The sugar industry with its 74 mills too faces a critical problem for want
of adequate sugarcane. Sugar output which fell by 6.42 per cent last year
from the preceding year's output, may face the same kind of difficulties
this year despite the fact that support prices for sugarcane has been
raised by almost 50 per cent to encourage sugarcane farmers to produce more.
Production capacity of sugar mills is double the quantity of cane available
and hence, after the output peaked at 3 million tonnes in 1994-95, it
dropped to 2.5 million tonnes and then to 2.2 million tonnes in the
following two years.
The government has decided to permit import of raw sugar to be re-processed
and exported so that the surplus production capacity of the mills could be
used but the farm leaders are protesting as they want the mills to pay more
and more for sugarcane in the manner they did last year.
Cement production which recorded negative growth last year is facing a
sudden drop in demand following the suspension of many mega public sector
projects and delay in starting new projects. And because of the recession
and soaring cost of construction, demand from the private sector too has
also fallen. So the government has come up with incentives for export of
cement, which should do well.
Rapid private sector industrialization received a major setback in 1972
when 10 groups of basic industries were nationalised by the Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto government.
Although major industrial sectors like textiles and sugar were not
nationalised, private sector investment received a major setback, more so
after nationalisation of banks, life insurance companies and shipping in 1974.
It was an extraordinary case of the national capital being nationalised
while foreign enterprises were spared. Those which were taken over through
misunderstanding or wrong calculations were hurriedly returned to the
foreign majority shareholders of such companies.
At its peak, the Board of Industrial Management, set up to supervise the
operations of these industries had 100 units under it and a quarter of them
were vegetable ghee factories. Recently began the privatization of these
units.
As a result the government shed control over 85 units, beginning with 67
between 1991-94 and 5, 12 and 1 in the following three years. The Nawaz
Sharif government has earmarked a large number of projects, including the
Heavy Mechanical and Heavy Electrical Complexes and the remaining vegetable
oil mills for privatization within a year from now, which is pretty daunting.
Soon after nationalisation, these units began paying far more taxes than
their private sector owners did, then their production went down, the
workers' unions became too dominant and obtained a larger share of the
profits than they should, while mismanagement and corruption eroded such
units further.
When it comes to privatization, governments have shown too marked a
preference for foreign investors, particularly in the power and
telecommunications sector.
Successive governments wanted direct foreign investment as well, but the
response has been small. Inclusive of the portfolio investment of $205
million it was only $1,306 million in 1995-96 and a million dollars in the
first nine months of last year, inclusive of a portfolio investment of $90
million.
Much of the foreign investment, besides that done by ICI and Lever
Brothers, has gone into the private power production sector because of the
assured large profits.
Meanwhile, the share market has been in the doldrums and has been dropping
after share prices had briefly risen because of the poor profit
declarations of companies listed on stock exchanges. Now, the President of
the Karachi Stock Exchange, Arif Habib, says low or no dividends by a
majority of the companies has kept the share market depressed and possible
foreign investors for our shares at bay.
It has also been reported that foreign investors who had signed memoranda
of understanding for investing $5 billion during the last three years have
now told the Board of Investment the investment climate in the country was
not good enough to make such large investments.
And the new Chairman of the Investment Board, Humayun Akhtar, has admitted
the present investment climate in Pakistan is not very conducive due to
various reasons like unnecessary interference by government departments etc.
He has conceded that Pakistan has a negative image internationally as far
as foreign investment is concerned despite the fact it is a lucrative
market for foreign investors. He has promised a new investment policy by
the first week of next month. We have to wait to see how good, attractive
and productive it is.
The fact is that if Pakistani investors don't invest, foreign investment
will be small. Much of $8.5 billion kept in our banks belong to industrial
investors and they should be induced to invest that money productively
instead of simply earning dollar interest on that. Investment like charity
should begin at home if we want to succeed.
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970818
--------------------------------------------------------------------
*From foreign rule to foreign loans
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Jafar Wafa
Political independence which we won 50 years ago, has now been swapped by
economic servitude. This is the doom and gloom tale being told, with
convincing financial data, by 'independent' economists, not in government
employment. Whether it is true or false we should look outside the confines
of our country to find an answer.
Too much has been repeatedly written on these pages by eminently qualified
persons to drive home the simple truth that the country has already sunk
deep in the morass of debt, particularly foreign loans advanced by
multilateral monetary agencies, with numerous strings attached. The
oft-quoted facts and figures bear no repetition.
Pakistanis serving abroad, who alone are in a position to send home foreign
currency not as charity but on lucrative terms, have no faith in the men
and women who run this country.
Remember the recent controversy in the US, how a lady was alleged to have
misused if not misappropriated, the amount subscribed by Pakistani
expatriates for welfare works in their homeland? Also, remember how an
American state attorney has just said, "Pakistanis would turn in anything
for a few hundred dollars," or words to this effect, belated retractions
and clarifications being one-sided versions.
It is not corruption in high or low places pervading Pakistan, which draws
flak on the country's administration, foreigners suspect Pakistanis to be a
nation of dishonest and unreliable folk. It is complete absence of fair and
well-meaning accountability that is the ground for worldwide distrust in
our political and administrative set up.
In India, the last Congress government comprising cabinet ministers and the
prime minister were involved in the 'Hawala Scandal', but all of them
either resigned promptly or were taken to task and had to face prosecution.
A chief minister enjoying enormous popularity in Bihar has been arrested
recently in connection with another scam.
Even in the United States, presidents have been accused of scandalous
conduct and one had to leave the White House. This incumbent is contesting
a sex scandal case in court. There had also been an outcry that he has
amassed funds from local as well as foreign lobbies to fight his
presidential election. But whatever he did was not underhand or
clandestine, because US laws permit such kind of fund raising for
electioneering.
In Japan, prime ministers had to relinquish charge, during the last decade
and face enquiries and court proceedings for alleged malpractices.
Can we cite a single instance of comparable nature personal vendetta apart
in our political history?
President Kim of South Korea, has seen to it that two of his predecessors,
against whom corruption charges have been proved during their respective
tenures, are sent to jail.
His son, dubbed 'crown prince' by the Press has been handcuffed and
arrested (with photographs appearing in newspapers) and is being prosecuted
for having received money from businessmen on as many as 90 different
occasions.
In contrast, our 'uncrowned king' though being incarcerated after
dethronement, lives happily like his hobby-horses. Our criminal
investigating agencies (there is a surfeit of them) have no precedent to
produce where a powerful person, while basking in the sunshine of power was
ever even questioned for his misdeeds and manifest corruption, let alone
having been prosecuted.
Anyway, by a stroke of some foreign NGO's pen, our country has been made to
descend from the victory stand of international corruption contest.
But this positive factor is not going to improve our tarnished image a bit,
because we have the bad reputation of being loan addicts, squandering the
borrowed money on projects that yield hefty kickbacks.
Around the 50th year of our existence, some whiz kids of this government
have discovered that every institution and organisation in this country is
just not workable. Be it banks and other financial institutions, or the
water and power behemoth; WAPDA, or the railways with its 8,000 kilometre
network, or the steel mills, the only plant of its kind in the country, or
even cement and ghee factories.
Their sale to foreign bidders is necessary, perhaps, to raise more money to
finance a bloated bureaucracy in civilian dress or in uniform, for
supporting an unduly large cabinet; and for prodigally spending on
grandiose projects; and so on.
>From self-sufficiency in wheat and sugar we have progressively turned into
net importers of these staples, purchasing a record quantity of 4 million
tonnes of wheat this year.
This is how we have marched ahead with the help of money borrowed right and
left, at home and abroad!
Foreign indebtedness in itself is not a thing to feel ashamed of. It is
misappropriation and misuse of foreign money by politicians, in league with
bureaucrats, that carries the stigma.
Which country other than the present-day sole superpower would be an object
of contempt and condemnation on the score of foreign debt alone.
According to 'The Economist' last month, "American debts to foreigners are
still the highest in the world. And they are still rising." The figure
stood at $831.3 billion till June 30 last year. But the money has been well
spent.
There is economic boom in that country, providing a job of some kind to all
job seekers. The budget deficit has narrowed. Industrial production has
risen by 4.4 per cent since the previous year.
Agricultural productivity is higher by 42 per cent than in the European
Union. Annual subsidy of $5.5 billion to farmers for growing what the
government wanted them to grow has been ended now after half a century, as
US export of farm products during the last fiscal touched an all-time high
of $60 billion.
Before we finish this piece, there is the latest report from Vietnam which
is in hot water now, exactly the Mexican way.
It is facing national insolvency because of failed ventures and aborted
strategy. It needs $20 billion to bail itself out.
It is approaching Japanese and Chinese banks but not the IMF, because the
Central Bank feels that the country would lose face and accept stringent
conditions that will only benefit the Fund's Western capitalist patrons'
conditions requiring opening of its market for US and European goods (and
now, services also like banking, insurance, shipping), lowering tariff
rates to make imported goods cheaper than indigenous ones and establishing
'trade norms' (whatever it means).
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970818
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Enabling situations breed corruption
--------------------------------------------------------------------
R.M.U. Suleman
"In Pakistan there are going to be no opportunities for opportunists. Most
of the people who have come here, I know, have come in search of
opportunities." These were the hollow words uttered by the first Finance
Minister, Ghulam Mohammad, before all the federal officers stationed in
Karachi just a few weeks after the founding of Pakistan.
Wiseacres now engaged, with or without the IMF diktat, in the amusing
exercise of downsizing will do well to remember that the federal
secretariat officers attending the aforesaid Karachi meeting could be
easily accommodated in the now decaying but historic and tiny Khaliqdina
Hall on Bunder Road.
The rise in bureaucratic numbers and powers since then has been unabated,
unaffected in civil as well as military spheres even by the virtual halving
of the size of the country in 1971.
In 1961, when this scribe happened to go to Madras on an official visit, a
blunt Marathi Commissioner of Income Tax who had been transferred from
Jullundhar spoiled a social gathering by inquiring from the few Pakistanis
present, the intervening progress of Pakistan's rishwat (bribery) colony.
After being told that there was a rishwat colony in every city, including
those of India, he explained how he came across this description of the
newly developed Gulberg Colony.
In early 1960, when there was a rare spree of Indo-Pakistan goodwill in the
wake of the signing of the World Bank touted Indus Basin Treaty between the
two countries, all visa restrictions were greatly eased to allow people
across the border to watch an inter-dominions hockey match in Lahore.
Hordes of Indians who came for the match also made quite thorough rounds of
Lahore, old and new. On return they told the Marathi bureaucrat that the
most notable and amazing thing that they saw in and around Lahore was the
rishwat colony.
The Finance Minister of yore himself proved an opportunist and turned
whatever ramshackle constitution Pakistan then had into toilet paper.
The law of necessity established to legitimise his opportunist act provided
the sheet anchor for the long and dark authoritarian rule of General Ziaul
Haq whose death anniversary was observed with much fanfare only yesterday.
His rule meant the trampling of all the social values that this country
ever had.
The 50th year of Pakistan has been rather auspicious from the point of view
of its international corruption ranking. According to Transparency
International (TI), Pakistan has moved from second ranking in 1996 to fifth
in 1997.
Nigeria continues occupying the first position, but the second position has
gone to Bolivia, third to cocaine-infested Colombia, and fourth to Russia
passing through the throes of dismemberment and break-neck privatisation.
Mexico, Indonesia and India occupy the sixth, seventh and eighth position
respectively.
A contrary development of 1997 is the punitive measures suggested by former
air chiefs to put an end to kickbacks. In an initiative unprecedented in
Pakistan, the three former air chiefs have 'strongly urged' Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif to enact a law to eliminate the menace of kickbacks and
commissions from defence purchases.
In a signed letter sent to the prime minister, Air Marshal Asghar Khan, Air
Chief Marshal Zulfiqar Ali Khan and Air Chief Marshal Jamal A. Khan, have
asked the prime minister to "carry out legislative surgery to remove the
cancer" of corruption from "the nation's body permanently."
To close the doors on lucrative kickbacks in defence-related purchases,
they have submitted to the prime minister a 12-page draft entitled The
Defence Agents Prohibition Act, 1997.
At least one of the three former air chiefs has never had any political
connection. He also declined a well-deserved extension in service and had a
reputation of being incorruptible.
The proposed draft law sets down the procurement procedure, defines
offences and suggests penalties for these offences. Penalties include
cancellation of the contract, blacklisting of the firm and imprisonment of
the commission agent and fine.
It also suggests provisions for appeal and indemnity. Even the much
criticised IMF has toughened its stance on corruption in developing countries.
Stepping up efforts to combat corruption in the developing world, it has
adopted a new policy of denying financial assistance to countries where
graft threatens to undermine their economic recovery programmes.
Signalling that it means business, the IMF which in the past has based most
of its lending decisions strictly on economic criteria, is cutting off a
$220 million loan to Kenya because of the refusal of Kenayan authorities to
clean up pervasive bribery and self-enrichment.
Kenya's currency has plunged as much as 20 per cent this week as a result.
The moves are among the most significant in a series of recent measures
taken against corruption by aid agencies, Western governments and
international organizations.
They come in the wake of criticism aimed at the IMF and other aid donors
over the blind eye that they allegedly turned towards rampant bribe taking
in Zaire during much of Mobuto's 32 year reign. Mobutu's corruption and
repression spurred a rebellion that toppled him in May, and the nation was
renamed Congo.
The IMF's new policy, enshrined in guidelines approved by its board, does
not mean that IMF money will be withheld from any country where payoffs are
common. Rather, it amounts to a warning that the IMF may pull the plug on a
country when it believes corruption to be so corrosive as to endanger the
attainment of goals specified in a Fund-backed recovery plan.
"Financial assistance from the IMF ... could be suspended or delayed on
account of poor governance if there is reason to believe it could have
significant macroeconomic implications that threaten the successful
implementation of the programme, or if it puts in doubt the purpose of the
use of IMF resources," the guideline states.
"The guidelines are very important," according to TI. "It's long overdue
that multilateral organizations involved in financing developing countries
place on a par with macro policies the basic soundness of the government
institutions with which they are dealing."
The developments reflect a rising feeling in favour of taking action based
on research showing that bribe-taking by public officials tends to impede
development, because scarce government funds are funnelled into
unproductive investments to earn payoff.
The IMF guidelines state that the fund should not "interfere in domestic or
foreign policies" of a borrowing country. But they call for its employees
to point out the economic consequences of corrupt practices that they may
perceive during the periodic consultations they hold with government
officials from the Fund's 131 member countries.
And in the cases of countries borrowing from the Fund that have been judged
to be seriously plagued by corruption, the IMF staff might insist, for
example, on "the removal of individuals from involvement in particular
operations where corruption had occurred," according to the guidelines.
"The kickback takers rob the armed forces of the most advantageous
purchasing terms in their weapon acquisition," write the former air chiefs
who commanded legendary reputation in the PAF.
In an obvious reference to the fact that the corruption is not confined to
the 'commission agents' alone but reaches out broadly into the higher
echelons of officialdom, both civil and military, they state that "kickback
takers act as front men for those who siphon off millions of dollars from
the nation's scarce defence resources. They also bring the armed forces
into disrepute ... and lower the services' morale and fighting spirit."
Tracing the history of the menace of kickbacks in defence purchases, the
letter says by the early 1960s the commission agents in defence contracts
had become powerful offshoots of the Pakistani business houses that had
gradually replaced, with official encouragement, the European owned import
traders of Karachi and Lahore. "The amount of kickbacks had by the 1970s
invisibly grown to several million dollars in each large contract," the
letter adds.
It further says despite attempts by the Air Headquarters to stamp out this
corrupt practice, the agents and their masters have continued to plunder
the nation and the cancer has continued to spread. For this a few service
personnel are also responsible but the blame must overwhelmingly attach to
those who have wielded power and influence in our past governments.
There is a lot of truth in the saying that there are no dishonest persons,
only dishonest situations.
The law drafted by the three former air chiefs makes a heroic effort to
remove dishonest situations at least from defence services which have a
universal reputation of being the biggest source of corruption.
The draft law makes only one major mistake of viewing corruption in
departmental terms. The fact of the matter is that there are no corrupt
departments only corrupt societies.
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970819
--------------------------------------------------------------------
CLA to be turned into autonomous commission
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Aug 18: The Federal Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs
Senator Sartaj Aziz said here on Monday that the Corporate Law Authority
(CLA) was being restructured into an autonomous commission for bringing
about effective reforms which could ensure corporate governance in stock
exchanges.
Speaking as a chief guest at the "Top Companies Awards" distribution
ceremony organized by the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) to felicitate the
managements of top 25 companies for the year 1995, the minister said that
while restructuring the CLA all care would be taken to ensure that its
board should have effective representation of the private sector.
He further said that the CLA, in addition to its policy making role would
also be given sufficient administrative, financial and operational powers
so that monitoring and performance of the stock exchanges could be
effectively undertaken.
Well aware of the fact that some resistance was being put up vis a vis the
reforms being made by CLA for bringing about administrative changes in the
stock exchanges the minister further said that similarly, the governing
boards of the stock exchanges would also have representation of outside
directors in line with the practice in the progressive markets. This would
help represent the interests of the investors in the deliberations of the
stock exchange boards and would thus inspire greater confidence to the
investors, he added.
Purporting his message to be taken seriously, Mr Sartaj Aziz categorically
said: "We are in any case determined to push through these reforms and to
ensure that corporate governance improves not only through better laws but
also through a self- imposed code of conduct and a higher sense of
responsibility to the shareholders."
The minister asserted that with the full implementation of the reforms in
the capital market, the face of our markets should completely change within
the next two years making our stock exchanges comparable to the best in the
world in terms of infrastructure facilities, transparency, fairness and
efficiency.
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970819
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Repatriated savings assured full protection
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff Reporter
LAHORE, Aug 18: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appealed to businessmen on
Monday to boost exports and share a part of their profits with others by
paying taxes to consolidate the economy of the country.
"We've steered the economy out of the financial crisis, but it needs to be
consolidated for which the government requires revenue. It is your
responsibility to pay taxes. Be kind to the nation and share your profits
with others by paying taxes. I hope that you will not squander this
opportunity (by evading taxes)," he told a big gathering of businessmen and
bankers at the inauguration of the new Habib Bank Limited (HBL) building
here on the Mall.
Mr Sharif urged the affluent to bring their foreign exchange savings back
into the country. "If you want any legal or constitutional cover, we are
prepared to provide it. The Lahore High Court has already ruled against
investigating the source of foreign exchange currency accounts," he said.
He claimed that the country's foreign exchange reserves stood at $1.5
billion. However, he warned, it was not something to be proud of. "What is
$1.5 billion for a country like Pakistan which aspires to become an Asian
tiger?."
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970822
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Hubco earns net profit of Rs7.3bn
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Dilawar Hussain
KARACHI, Aug 21: The Hub Power Company Limited posted net profit at Rs 7.3
billion or earning per share at Rs 6.34, on turnover at Rs 18.3 billion for
its first full year of operation ending June 1997.
Chairman Mr.Mohamed A. Alireza confirmed in the report to members that an
interim dividend during the first quarter of 1988 was a distinct possibility.
Finance Director, Mr.S.Khurshid Hussain, who unveiled the accounts before
the press, however, would not confirm or deny that the market's expectation
of Rs 10 to 11 per share in dividend, was correct.
He, however, hastened to add that the shareholders would be paid the maiden
dividend in first quarter 1998, after about four years, which justified an
adequate payout. Mr.Khurshid clarified that the projected profit in the
Equity Offer at Rs 5.4 billion had been arrived at through the conversion
rate of Rs 37 to a US dollar, while the actual 1997 profit at Rs 7.3
billion was at Rs 41-42 to a dollar. "There is therefore a net difference
on the lower side, of 40 million USD", he said.
Mr.Khurshid did not say so but the explanation was believed to quell the
clamourings from quarters other than shareholders, for a share in the
perceived benefit that may have accrued to Hubco on the
earlier-than-expected completion of project and the lower-than-budgeted
total cost.
The 1200 MW oil-fired power station began full commercial operation on
March 31, 1997, earlier than scheduled by an aggregate 27 weeks, and the
project cost had stood at US $1.5 billion, slightly lower than the budgeted
US $1.6 billion. Mr.Khurshid contended that a late start by as few as six
months would have cost the company as much as US $ 100 million more. "All
this risk of cost overruns was borne entirely by the shareholders, who
should therefore legitimately be entitled to rewards", the Hubco finance
director argued, adding that neither Wapda nor the government had consented
to assume any part of that risk. Mr.Khurshid however did not project the
financial figures for the next half year to end-December 1997, saying that
the company had drawn out projections only for the full year. "For all of
1998, the profit may be a few million rupees lower than projected", he
surmised. Mr.Khurshid confirmed that Wapda has to pay the fixed component
of tariff irrespective of whether it used the electricity or not, and that
Hubco produces power to fill orders from Wapda. The company began supplying
power to Wapda from July 9, 1996 and by the close of the financial year,
the company had delivered 5,821 GWhrs of electricity. From November 1996 to
May 1997, Wapda had utilized the Hubco potential by 100 per cent and the
company generated up to 20 per cent of all electricity supplied in the
country.
Explaining further the technical aspects, the chairman said in his report
that the utilization of the available capacity by Wapda at 73.86 per cent
was higher than the base case utilization of 64.6 per cent assumed in the
Equity Offer for Sale. "As designed, Hubco was required to have a net
output of 1200MW. However, commissioning tests have demonstrated that the
actual net output was 57MW higher at 1257MW", the chairman asserted.
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970823
--------------------------------------------------------------------
KSE 100-share index falls below 1,800 points
--------------------------------------------------------------------
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Aug 22: The KSE 100-share index on Friday fell below the
psychological barrier of 1,800 on heavy selling in the pivotals, signalling
a protracted bearish spell in the sessions to come. The net loss over the
day was 58.06 points or nearly 3.5 per cent, a massive one in a single
session judged by any standard.
"It breached the second barrier of 1,800 during the week at 1,796.06 as
compared to 1,845.66 a day earlier, as investors both local and foreign are
on their way out, of course, after taking the booty", said a leading dealer.
The market capitalization also fell to below Rs 550bn from the overnight Rs
567bn as the leading shares including the PTCL and the Hub Power suffered
sharp setback.
But those, notably genuine investors who followed their lead amid hopes of
capital appreciation were again the leading losers, licking their wounds
behind, he added.
"It is pity to leave the market at a time when some positive developments
on the economic front are just around", said an analyst adding "the damage
has already been done to a perfectly sound market by some bargain-hunters
led by leading stock brokers".
Analysts said the near-term outlook appeared to be terribly bearish as
investors are not inclined to take positions even at the falling prices in
pivotals such as Hub-Power and Dewan Salman.
Changing political background political news and fears of law and order
situation might be some of the inhibiting reasons behind the current
sell-off but there are some positive factors too, which could keep
investors in the rings, they added.
"Genuine investors who could afford to stay back apparently in a bid to
avert further losses are conspicuous by their absence and that factor
perhaps kept trading interest in a low key", they observed.
But it was said to be largely the absence of foreign investors from the
rings,which caused near-panic selling from locals, notably the weakholders
and jobbers. Both the PTCL - which is being traded spot - and Hub Power,
the two leaders led the market decline despite news of good corporate
earnings for the last year. Foreign investors who have built-up long
positions two weeks back are said to be the leading sellers.
Both fell well below their resistance level of Rs 40 and Rs 50 from the
peak of Rs 45 and Rs 60 on persistent selling, leading the broader market
to follow them.
Other index shares, notably PSO also received heavy battering in each
session and fell sharply followed by Shell Pakistan, Sui Northern, and some
others.
Second interim dividend at the rate of 20 per cent, making the total
interim to 40 per cent for the year ending Dec 31,1997, attracted selling
from a section of investors, pushing its price lower by Rs 3.25. Engro
Chemicals followed it.
Most of the MNCs, also suffered pruning under the lead of Glaxo-Wellcome,
Lever Brothers, Grays of Cambridge, Sandoz Pakistan and Ciba-Geigy and some
others.
Textiles shares though fell fractionally but lost ground in each session.
But Saif Textiles, Sana Textiles and Nishat Mills were leading losers on
active selling at the higher levels.
Synthetic shares also fell under the lead of Dewan Salman, which triggered
sympathetic selling in others and so did Adamjee Insurance after early
improved performance.
Trading volume was light at 30m shares but losers maintained a strong lead
over the gainers at 151 to 45 with 59 shares holding on to the last levels.
The most active list was topped by FFC-Jordan Fertiliser off Rs 1.05 on 13m
shares followed by Hub-Power easy Rs 1.45 on 7m shares; ICI Pakistan lower
60 paisa on 4m shares; and Sui Northern lower 25 paisa on 0.400m shares.
Defaulting companies: Trading on this counter was dull in the absence of
buyers and as a result, all the five shares fell five to 75 paisa, the
biggest decline of 75 paisa being in Ravi Rayon after having failed to
attract any buyer at Thursday's bidding. Others including Pangerio Sugar
also fell.
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970817
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Nuts!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Ardeshir Cowasjee
WHAT did Nur Khan say in Karachi on August 3, at a seminar devoted to 'The
Armed Forces and Nation Building'? He said that our leaders, by design,
took the country to war twice, and, by design, lost both wars; that we are
neither capable of going to war successfully against India nor of taking it
on in an arms race. Sensible.
Five days later in Lahore, at a seminar devoted to '50 years of Journalism
in Pakistan', Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, extolling freedom of
expression and of the Press, said that he welcomed criticism as it helped
the government pinpoint its weaknesses and failings.
Majid Nizami, when he spoke, warned the government against establishing
trade relations with India until the resolution of the Kashmir issue. He
urged the government to forfeit the pension of Air Marshal Nur Khan for
advocating what he termed "a surrender to India."
Dr Nasim Hasan Shah, who normally is seen sitting by the side of Nizami,
also spoke. We are at one as far as freedom of expression and Press freedom
is concerned, so I rang him, and suggested he attempt to drive some sense
into the minds of his war-mongering hawkish friends. Were they ignorant of
how wars were lost? Did they wish to lose yet one more? Would you, I asked
the Doctor, take on someone double your size? Quick on the draw, he
retorted, "Was not Ghulam Ishaq double my size?"
Laughing, I accepted his David and Goliath comparison, and asked him to
explain just what right Majid Nizami had to state that the government
should stop Nur Khan's pension? Is that not the same as my saying that the
government should ban Nizami's newspapers?
The Doctor agreed with me - to convince blinkered men of the folly of their
thinking is indeed difficult.
Now to our first Air Marshal, that man of integrity and courage, who knows
what wars are all about and knows our strength. He too has advocated peace.
A letter from a former foreign office expert, describing himself as "former
ambassador" Ghayur Ahmad, was printed in this newspaper on August 12. He is
apparently irked by Asghar's very correct 'Comment' published on August 1:
"Our foreign policy has been lacking vision...."
What did Asghar say: "The defensive strength of Pakistan has been gradually
weakening and Pakistan is not in a position today to meet effectively a
threat to its security from the most likely direction... It is almost
totally dependent on defence purchases from abroad, for which it neither
has the money nor a reliable source of supply... The recent statement by Dr
Abdul Qadeer Khan... that we have the capacity to destroy all India's
cities within 15 minutes, might have brought satisfaction and a sense of
security to the majority of our gullible public, but it was one that could
have been made by an irresponsible politician and not by a scientist... It
is this kind of chauvinism that has contributed to bringing the country to
its present state of shaky existence... With our economic and military
limitations, we must consider the options available to us in a realistic
manner. The first and probably the least attractive is to give up any hope
of securing freedom for the people of Kashmir and mend our fences with
India..." Eminently sensible.
But it motivated foreign affairs expert Ghayur Ahmad to write, "It is
surprising that a person of the Air Marshal's stature should have
considered it necessary to openly undermine Pakistan's defence
capabilities, particularly in the nuclear field." We now better understand
why we have had, and continue to have, such an incomprehensible disjointed
foreign policy.
Asghar Khan and Nur Khan were the two best air chiefs we have had. In their
days, PAF did not involve itself in commercial ventures such as Shaheen
Foundation and Shaheen Pay TV, opening up its men to hobnobbing with
politicians and thus to corruption. Both chiefs commanded respect, they had
no need to seek or demand it. They lived simply, like soldiers, they
behaved correctly, like soldiers. They did not cavort around in motorcades
with wailing sirens. They did not build unmilitary messes that resemble
cheap glittery 3-star hotels. They did not build 'Air Houses' at every PAF
base in the country. On their travels, they stayed with dignity in the
messes with their officers and men. In their days there was ragging in the
PAF academies but no cadet died or was seriously injured. Had there been a
violent death, neither would have written to the parents asking them to
console themselves with the knowledge that the cadet had died in the
service of his country and had 'embraced Shahadat.'
What are these well-trained men now saying? They know how strong we are,
what it takes to lose a war, how long we can defend ourselves, from where
our supplies come, which of our 'friends' are unlikely to support us, how
we have alienated our friends. They also know that we are being manipulated
into playing the Great Game that has always played on our Northern borders,
which neither the British nor the Russians were able to win. They both know
that today's professional armies cannot be trained solely in mosques.
What do they want? They would prefer to negotiate and win rather than fight
and lose. Within, they wish to disarm the masses.
We, the people, are being asked to believe that the Taleban fell from the
skies, that their shot and shell rains down to them from heaven, that they
can capture and hold landlocked, constantly threatened Afghanistan, and
then form the ideal Islamic state. Our foreign minister Gohar Ayub was so
sure that these men from heaven were the answer to the Afghanis' prayers
that Pakistan recognised the Taleban government whilst a raging bloody war
was in progress with victory nowhere in sight. When this present Game is
over, another Durand Line may have to be drawn. We will have more refugees
to feed and house, and many, many more guns in our country with which our
people can play.
The beneficiaries of this will be a couple of Generals who will become rich
and a couple of their sons who will one day be able to say, "Fifteen
million dollars, that's peanuts," and then be appointed ministers in our
governments.
As a nation we are broke. We are fortunate that we have a confident Army
chief who also realises the importance of cutting defence costs without
impairing our strength, and who knows well how even the great Soviet Empire
disintegrated, embroiled as it was in its arms race with the US. Russia now
does not have enough money to pay its soldiers.
We need a steady hand at the helm. The corrupt, and the reputedly corrupt,
can exert no moral authority, they lack credibility, they cannot govern.
The spending spree is on and they cannot stop it. Heaven knows how much of
the Rs 100 million allocated by Benazir's government for the 50th
anniversary celebrations has been spent by Nawaz's government.
Bankrupt Sindh, province of a bankrupt country, merrily squanders what it
does not have on useless functions and trinkets. Last week, a man from the
Sindh Assembly Speaker's office called asking if I knew Faredoon Dinshaw
and his address. The Speaker wished to send him an invitation. Faredoon was
my father-in-law, I answered, but is now beyond the Speaker's reach. The
man rang again. The Speaker wishes to meet Faredoon, so could he have his
address. Exasperated, I dictated it: "Faredoon Dinshaw, Seventh Heaven,
Outer Space, The Universe." Send the card to me, I said, and I will forward
it. A couple of days later, an envelope arrived addressed to "Mr Saredoon,
7th Haven the Univers."
The Speaker invited Mr Saredoon to lunch with him on August 14. An enclosed
circular informed him that "In appreciation and acknowledgement of the
services of late Nadir Sha Edeljee Dinshaw for the Country in general and
the Province of Sindh in particular, the Hon'ble Speaker, Provincial
Assembly of Sindh, Mr Nawab Mirza Advocate desires to present a shield of
this Assembly to you good self on the occasion of Golden Jubilee
Celebration..."
Faredoon's father Nadirshaw died seventy five years ago in 1922, and his
grandfather Eduljee in 1914. Much before 1947, the city acknowledged them
and raised their statues. Eduljee stood in front of Trinity Church and
Nadirshaw before what is now Jinnah's Flagstaff House. Come Pakistan,
fearing vandalism, they were moved and pedestalled in safe seclusion.
"Ardshy Kowsji" was also honoured with an invitation from the Speaker and
was offered identical recognition. How can anyone accept anything from a
government that cannot protect his life or property?
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970822
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Samson unchained
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Ayaz Amir
THE anti-terrorism law gifted to the nation on the eve of its 50th
independence anniversary may have been nailed into the statute book now but
its contents are not a recent invention. During Nawaz Sharif's first term
as prime minister he had tried to get almost an identical law rushed
through the National Assembly but his enthusiasm was thwarted by murmurs of
protest from within his own party and, more importantly, because the then
president, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, let it be known that he was not in favour of
such heedless legislation.
But Nawaz Sharif, as a bewildered nation can readily make out, has faced no
such opposition this time. His parliamentary party would have spent more
time having lunch than in passing this law. Indeed the cohorts of the
Muslim League, of whom I was a loyal and steadfast member but recently, are
setting new records in parliamentary tameness. Place anything before these
tigers and such is their fear of the Nawaz Sharif juggernaut that they will
shout their 'ayes' to it even if it be, to go by their recent performance,
a warrant for their collective execution. The Nazi and Soviet parties at
least had the excuse of believing in what they did. They also had the
Gestapo and the KGB to sustain the enthusiasm of their party members. The
Muslim League can be accused of anything but not even its worst enemies
would charge it with an excess of idealism. Besides, it yet has to lay the
foundations of a dependable secret service. Its passion for instant
law-making (Mr Khalid Anwar should soon be getting a prize in this
connection) is therefore more wondrous to behold than the quick-fixes of
any totalitarian party.
But if Nawaz Sharif could not have his way then and he has had it now,
wherein lies the difference? In nothing more profound than in the absence
of any check on him. For all its other faults, the presidency made powerful
by the Eighth Amendment was a check on the ubridled expression of prime
ministerial power. With Nawaz Sharif's coup against the Eighth Amendment,
that check has vanished leaving the prime minister and his intrepid
parliamentary numbers to do as they please. It goes without saying that
parliamentary sovereignty is an excellent thing but only in a climate where
power is exercised responsibly. When given enough rope every Pakistani
prime minister, including the unjustly-inflated Junejo, have failed the
test of responsibility. Nawaz Sharif is proving no exception to this
historic trend.
What need for him and his legal Richelieus to devise far-reaching laws in a
hurry and then have them railroaded through Parliament without the least
pretence of anything even approximating to honest or proper debate? If this
was a new Augustan age being ushered, in the haste might have been
understandable. But since it clearly is not, the only conclusion it lends
itself to is that the Muslim League is afraid of its own numbers. It wants
to deny them the smallest opportunity for reflection (if reflection and the
Muslim League parliamentary party be not a contradiction in terms) because
it does not want this bad habit to grow. Railroading, whether the thing
being railroaded is worth the effort or not, stands thus transformed into
the supreme parliamentary virtue.
Each consulship has its own temperament. We know the temperament of the
Cavalier Restoration of Benazir Bhutto. She and her companions danced and
made merry on the deck even as the Titanic was sinking. Consequences was a
word that her Prince-Consort (his exploits now enshrined in history) did
not understand. The temperament of the present consulship is different.
These are earnest and well-meaning men, imbued with love of country and the
fear of God and convinced that what they are doing is for the best and
therefore unchallengeable in the courts of men. This self-righteousness
(for there is no other word for it) is what gives an oppressive edge to the
mood of this consulship.
Opposition it can brook and even the coming together of great challenges.
What it cannot stand is the airing of doubt and the asking of questions for
scepticism and self-righteousness are like fire and water. They cannot
exist together. The ayatollahs of Iran and the Taliban of Afghanistan are
steeped in earnestness. The word they can resist but they cannot put up
with questions. Nawaz Sharif and the men closest to him have their
self-righteousness engraved on their sleeves. Stand elephants in their path
but do not doubt their intentions.
Self-righteousness, however, is a poor guide to action. Consider in this
light the anti-terrorism law against which the principal criticism should
not be that it is harsh but that much of it is plain unnecessary. It
targets not only sectarian crime but also offences like murder and rape
which were best left to ordinary courts. It gives sweeping powers to the
police and other agencies, including the army, when their services are
requisitioned under this act. And it makes a mockery of due process by
compressing police and judicial procedures and by putting the power of life
and death in the hands of political appointees.
Nawaz Sharif's motives may be of the best. Regarding the Punjab Strongman
and my former leader, Shahbaz Sharif, I can say with certainty that he has
been consumed with anxiety about the state of law and order in the province
and the tardiness of existing judicial and legal practices which play into
the hands of lawbreakers. But the answer to this is not to set up a
parallel system of justice as the ruling party has done but to see how the
criminal justice system, which is sound and comprehensive enough in theory,
has been corrupted and debased in practice. Admittedly, this will take some
doing. But who says that societies which have fallen on hard times can be
reformed overnight by the waving of magic wands? In this case it is not
even a magic wand being waved but a law with holes wide enough for an
armoured column to ride through. There is also mischief written into it
because its provisions are open to abuse. It is not enough to laud the
intentions of lawmakers. The hallmark of a good law is that it should have
no scope in it for misuse. On this count if on no other this law fails by
the widest of margins.
But what the framing of this law and its hurried passage point to is
something more sinister than the law itself. For what it shows is that our
present consuls are amenable to gullible ideas. I am almost certain that in
the highest echelons of the Muslim League this law in all its details has
been read by very few people. But obviously they have been sold its virtues
or they would not have staked what remains of their goodwill on its
passage. What does this mean? That we are dealing with impressionable minds
and ears ready to listen to beguiling counsel.
Nawaz Sharif is a well-meaning man. Good intentions (but, I suspect,
without much relation to cause and effect) beat in his breast. But remember
what happened last time. While he donned the mantle of a populist, his
government was taken over by his kitchen advisers. To judge by some early
actions, the quality of Nawaz Sharif's advisers has not much improved. But
the difference is that now there is no one to remind the prime minister of
his mortality. He is very much on his own and for better or worse the
entire nation must abide the consequences of his actions.
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970822
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A cure worse than the disease
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Khalid Jawed Khan
CONFRONTED with a resurgent tide of terrorism, the government has
promulgated the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997. Not surprisingly, it has been
severely criticized for this harsh law because it is seen to provide a
virtual licence to the police to act arbitrarily and violate civil
liberties of the citizens in the name of fighting terrorism. The problem of
violence and subversion is too complex to warrant a superficial response.
It is axiomatic that every society is entitled to protect itself from
threats to its survival, be they internal or external. It is the
constitutional obligation of every government to maintain law and order and
provide a relatively peaceful environment for the people.
A compelling argument can be that an extraordinary menace like organized
violence and terrorism cannot be effectively dealt with by routine police
methods and under normal laws of the land. Even most advanced democracies
have discovered that ordinary laws are inadequate to meet this kind of
challenge. It has to be dealt with by special devices, both legal and
operational.
Conversely, such special laws inevitably carry the potential of eroding
civil liberties. It is, therefore, important to ask whether the new law is
proportionate to the mischief it seeks to suppress. Secondly, does the law
itself or the legal system of which it now forms part contain sufficient
safeguards to prevent its abuse and provide clear guidelines for those who
are required to administer it.
Unlike other laws which automatically come into force on promulgation, this
law would only be effective when the federal government makes a declaration
to that effect. Although it provides a list of various offences in the
schedule which are to be dealt with under this Act, it is basically meant
to curb terrorism and sectarian hatred. Surprisingly, it omits ethnic
hatred which is the primary source of violence in Karachi. This may give
rise to an impression that rather than making the drive against various
forms of terrorism evenhanded and objective, an exception has been allowed
in this case for reasons of political expediency. The other offences to
which the Act covers are those under Penal Code such as deliberate and
malicious acts intended to offend religious feelings by insulting religion
or religious beliefs or making derogatory remarks against holy personages,
kidnapping, robbery, dacoity, hijacking and some crimes under the Huddod
Ordinance. The Act also empowers the government to add or delete any
offence from the scope of the Act.
Once the government makes a declaration of intent to invoke this law, it
can call in the armed forces in aid of civil power. They will have the
powers of the police and are empowered to use such force, including firing,
as they deem necessary against any person who has either committed or is
likely to commit any offence under the Act. Under the new dispensation, it
is quite lawful for the police to shoot to kill a person if he was making a
speech which may be construed to be offensive to the religious feelings of
some others. The fictional "reasonable man" known to law for centuries is
not mentioned in this provision.
This indeed is a dangerous weapon to be placed in the hands of the security
forces who are notorious for their trigger-happy approach in dealing with
organized crime or violence and for their abuse of powers and excesses even
in the course of normal law-enforcement duties. Lives of citizens have
often been taken for granted by them even without this law. Armed with
sweeping powers, the potential for abuse has grown many times more.
The Act also empowers the law enforcers to arrest without warrant any
person about whom they have reasonable suspicion that he has committed, or
is about to commit, an offence covered by the new law. They may search any
premises without warrant to make arrest or to take possession of
instruments used or likely to be used for any listed offence. This power
exposes the lives and honour of ordinary citizens to the whims of our
security forces who are otherwise not known for their respect for the
citizen's right or for his or his family's privacy. They can enter anyone's
house even to collect literature presumed offensive.
The Act neither provides any guidelines nor does it require the police
authorities to lay down the precise parameters for the use of the powers
under the new law. If the police have to be given the power to fire at
suspects, at least rubber bullets should have been prescribed to be used,
the idea being to disable and apprehend rather than to kill. This would
have somewhat reduced the deadliness of the draconian law.
As to the punishment, the Act provides death penalty if a terrorist act
results in death and in other cases a minimum of seven years of
imprisonment. For acts which stir sectarian hatred, the penalty is up to
seven years of imprisonment. In all cases, the maximum punishment
prescribed by law is to be awarded unless the court thinks that there are
extenuating reasons to reduce the prison term. The trial under this Act is
to be conducted by Special Courts which is required to complete it within
seven days. As for its composition, any person who is or has been a
sessions judge or ADJ can be a judge of this Court. More surprising is the
provision that any person who has ever exercised the powers of a district
magistrate or ADM and has successfully completed an advance course in
Islamic law at the International Islamic University, Islamabad, or any
graduate of the same university who had taken Islamic Shariah or Fiqah as a
major subject can also be appointed its judge. In order words, any such
graduate who may have never even attended a court for a day can impose
death penalty after a trial of seven days.
There is, however, no security of terms or tenure of special court judges.
This is also against the spirit of the Constitution as interpreted by the
Supreme Court in the 'Judges case'. The Act provides for appeal to an
appellate tribunal of one or two judges of the high court. The law requires
the appellate court to decide the appeal within seven days. There is no
appeal to the supreme court.
Another significant inroad which this law makes into civil liberties is
that a confession made by an accused to a police officer of the rank of DSP
or above may be held against him as valid evidence. This not only violates
a universally accepted principle of protection against self-incrimination
but also violates Article 13 of the Constitution. Sad though it is, this is
not the first elected government which has taken liberty with this
fundamental right. The last elected government had also made such
statements admissible by amending the Terrorist Affected Areas (Special
Courts) (Amendment) Ordinance, 1996.
The law minister has defended it by saying that the previous government had
also done so. It is necessary to put the matter in true perspective. There
was a substantial difference of opinion among the advisers of the previous
government on this issue. However, when those who were opposed to this
amendment failed to persuade the government of this fatal deviation, they
sought to nullify its effect by inserting it in the Terrorist Affected Area
(Special Courts) Act, 1992, which they knew was not in force as it was
dependent on a declaration by government which was never made. The
so-called hawks of that government never discovered that lacuna.
Consequently, that amendment remained dormant for all its legal life and by
this simple yet ingenious device, this draconian provision was made
redundant while, at the same time, the hawks were misled into believing
that they had succeeded. The present law minister has not inserted any such
safety device in this Act. In any event, was that such a glorious
achievement of the previous government which the present one must
necessarily emulate?
This Act also provides that the government may also specify the manner,
mode and place of execution of any sentence passed under this Act. This
obviously keeps open the possibility of public execution. The earlier Nawaz
government had inserted an identical provision in Section 10 of the Special
Court for Speedy Trials Act, 1992. The Supreme Court in its suo motu
jurisdiction 1994 SCMR 1038 observed that this provision violated Article
14 of the Constitution.
Terrorism exists not because of absence of laws. All necessary laws are
already there. The question is one of their effective and even-handed
implementation. In our case, the problem is not that the government does
not know who is behind these heinous acts. It is fully aware of the causes
of terrorism as well as many of its perpetrators and yet no efforts are
made to confront them. The fundamental fact remains that you cannot stop
terrorism perpetrated in the name of religion while conniving at religious
intolerance in society and supporting militants in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
There should be little doubt that the fate of this law cannot be any
different from that of its predecessors. To prove its macho approach to law
enforcement, the government may perhaps stage a few public executions but
their impact would be as negative as Zia's public hangings.
No individual or party can claim to be the repository of all wisdom. None
can present a quick solution to such fundamental problems as terrorism and
violence. Democracy encourages public discourse of public issues. Herein
lies the solution to even the most complex problems. Yet so simple a
solution has so often eluded so many governments in Pakistan.
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970819
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Security at lower costs
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Afzal Mahmood
THE recent statement of Mr I.K. Gujral that India and Pakistan should agree
to mutual defence cuts as a first step towards promoting better ties in the
region has not received the attention it deserved in the Pakistani media.
The significance of this observation can be gauged from the fact that for
the first time in 50 years the offer to mutually cut defence expenditure
has been made from across the border by no less a person than the Prime
Minister of India.
It is a bold statement and deserves a bold response. To begin with, it
signifies a radical change in India's approach to South Asian peace and
security. So far New Delhi has brushed aside any attempt to equate Pakistan
with India militarily and has tried to justify its huge defence expenditure
on grounds of its size, its long border and its perceived threats from
across the Himalayas. Another reason, quoted by its defence analysts, for
not initiating arms control talks with Pakistan was stated to be lack of
trust between the two countries.
In 1989, Ms Benazir Bhutto, during her visit to Britain, suggested that New
Delhi should hold direct talks with Islamabad to avert an arms race in the
subcontinent. She asked: "If the Soviet Union and the United States can
talk about arms control, why can't we? Why should we be compelled to spend
more and more money on arms when we have so much better things to spend it
on." But no positive response came from New Delhi.
Most Indian commentators, including the redoubtable Mr K. Subrahmanyam,
argued talks for mutual confidence-building are possible at this stage but
it is too early for arms control negotiations between Indian and Pakistan.
Prime Minister I.K. Gujral's recent offer to mutually cut defence spending
should, therefore, be perceived as an important development in view of
India's reluctance in the past to hold arms control talks with Pakistan.
Much water has flown down the Ganges and the Indus in the last eight years
and both India and Pakistan have been obliged by the force of circumstances
to have a fresh look at their defence spending.
It is in our own interest to avoid an arms race with India. With its vastly
greater size, resources, population, economy, trained manpower and defence
industrial infrastructure, India can set a harsher pace for Pakistan with
regard to the acquisition of both conventional and nuclear weapons. Our
defence planners have to face the harsh reality that in the South Asia
regional context, India's military supremacy is a permanent fixture and
that our military competition with India may well become unsustainable by
the end of the century.
A major portion of our national budget goes to defence. We are spending 6%
of our GDP on defence which is twice the Indian level. While the country
has been halved, the size of our defence forces has quadrupled since 1971.
Pakistan underwent a rapid upgradation-cum-expansion of its armed forces in
the 1980s because of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the American
military assistance which came in the wake of the Afghan crisis. This led
to an unintentional arms race with India placing a much heavier burden on
Pakistan's economy than on India's. Pakistan is at present maintaining a
two-to-one force ratio with India, even though its defence expenditure is
backed up by an economy less than a fifth the size of its adversary.
But India too is experiencing difficulties in sustaining major defence
outlays in the face of chronic weaknesses in its economy and depressing
social indicators. Substantial cuts in the rate of growth of defence
expenditure in India in recent years testify to the growing realization in
New Delhi that the current defence outlays are becoming economically
crushing. India's attempt in the 1980s to become a great power has
backfired economically, and the burden of rising defence expenditure on the
economy is now acknowledged by all Indian analysts. Its hopes of an
economic resurgence after opening its markets to the world have not been
fulfilled.
The economy prospered for a time in certain fields and foreign investment
poured in, driving up real estate prices in Bombay and some South Indian
cities but self-sustaining development has failed to materialize. In the
worlds of Times of India, there is a widespread "sense of abject
resignation, an increasing sense of drift" in India which today attracts
less foreign investment than Vietnam.
The 1997 UNDP report on human development in South Asia carries dismal
statistics about the economic and social conditions prevailing in the
subcontinent. Fifty years after independence, about 500 million people in
the region are destitute, 337 million have no access to safe drinking
water, 260 million are without elementary health facilities. In terms of
real per capita income, Pakistan and India rank 119th and 142nd respectively.
India and Pakistan are spending far too much on arms and far too little on
social sectors. The two countries put together spend twice as much money on
defence as Saudi Arabia does even though the latter is 25 times richer than
both. While global military spending declined by 37 per cent between
1987-94, military spending in South Asia was up by 12 per cent. It is
estimated that the South Asian region, by reducing defence spending, can
create a potential peace dividend ranging from 80 to 125 billion dollars in
the next 15 years.
Fortunately, India and Pakistan can maintain the current kind of inter se
balance in their defence forces at a much lower level than at present.
Trying to maintain forces at current levels with depleting finances would
only result in aging and unreliable weapons and equipment. As a matter of
fact, this would erode combat power and make non-sense out of maintaining
current high force levels. The only sensible way for both countries is to
reduce the size of their defence forces, arm them with adequate equipment
and maintain an agreed inter se balance. How much lower could this level be
would depend on the degree of mutual trust they develop.
This can be built up over a period of time and levels could be adjusted
downwards as trust increases. It is not being suggested that Pakistan
should let its guard down very drastically or very suddenly. The whole
exercise should be a gradual process. But the very act of talking a
decrease in forces and agreeing on even a small reduction will have a
catalytic effect in improving the levels of trust and confidence between
the two countries.
Reduction in the defence forces should not pose any threat to the security
of Pakistan. If there has been no Indo-Pakistan war during the past 25
years, it has primarily been due to the presence of nuclear deterrence and
not so much because of our conventional armed strength. In the presence of
a mutual nuclear deterrence there is more scope for both countries to cut
back on conventional forces and maintain a lower level balance. This is
what the Chinese have done and what the Soviets are now doing.
The Arif-Sunderji proposal of 1992, calling for 25 per cent cuts in both
defence budgets and personnel of India and pakistan over the next five
years, can be taken as a starting point in any future negotiations between
the two countries. General (retd) Khalid Mahmud Arif, Pakistan's Vice-Chief
of Army Staff from 1984 to 1987 and General (retd) Krishna Swamy Sunderji,
India's Chief of Army Staff from 1986 to 1988, informally worked out this
formula in their encounter during the unofficial Indo-Pakistan dialogue
between prominent citizens.
They proposed a 25 per cent reduction in defence budgets, spread over five
years in the shape of a five per cent annual slashing, to be accompanied by
similar cuts in personnel. Under this proposal the Pakistan army will have
to reduce its strength by 44,000 men a year.
Pakistan should not hesitate to initiate a dialogue with India on arms
control and defence cuts. We must find out how much sincere India is in its
offer of mutual arms reduction. Also, we have a lot to gain out of these
negotiations in terms of both international public relationing and mutual
confidence-building vis-a-vis the Indian public. Besides official
negotiations, unofficial contacts should be encouraged between the media
and the academia of India and Pakistan to discuss the benefits of mutual
defence cuts and its modus operandi.
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970823
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Eggs in one basket
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By Mazdak
HAVING just marked - celebrated is too strong a word - our fiftieth
anniversary, let us turn our thoughts to a country that will be turning
fifty next year.
Israel was created nearly half a century ago in the name of religion, much
as Pakistan was. While there was an element of choice involved in the
establishment of the latter, the Zionist state was imposed on Palestine
without reference to the people; but the broad aim of both states was the
same: to create a nation-state for Jews and Muslims respectively.
Although Israel and Pakistan have developed along separate lines and have
entirely different problems, there are eerie similarities as well. Both
have fought successive wars with neighbouring states, and both have lived
with tension and confrontation for their entire existence. The fact that
they are artificial creations has led inevitably to territorial disputes;
for the same reason, they have not found ready acceptance in their
respective regions. Israel has been more fortunate in its enemies, as it
has been confronting a rag-tag collection of decadent and disorganised
states, most of which take orders from Tel Aviv's principal backer, the
United States. Pakistan has faced a vastly more powerful and independent
foe in India which is unwilling to brook an equal in the region.
These differences and similarities apart, it is instructive to examine how
far the external policies of both ideological states have been shaped by
the foreign assistance they have both received virtually from their
inception. In Israel's case, France was a major patron before the United
States took over that role after the 1956 invasion of Egypt when Israel's
strategic value was realized by Washington; indeed, the Zionist state has
been described as an American aircraft carrier in the oil-rich Middle East.
So when foreign observers express surprise and horror over the influence
Tel Aviv wields in Washington, and the clout the Jewish lobby has with
successive incumbents of the White House, they forget the value American
planners place on their close relationship with Israel which is viewed as a
forward base in a volatile and crucial part of the world. This has given
Israel enormous leverage with the Pentagon and the State Department,
enabling it to dominate the region in a fashion that would normally have
been unthinkable for such a small country.
By contrast, Pakistan's fortunes in Washington have not been as consistent.
Indeed, they have ebbed and flowed with the state of the cold war, with the
Korean and Afghan wars providing the high points of the relationship. The
signing of the Baghdad Pact, and our entry into SEATO and CENTO gave our
military access to modern weaponry and successive governments fiscal
support in the shape of free wheat under PL480, and cheap credits.
In the case of both Israel and Pakistan, external financial and military
support enabled them to develop and sustain internal and external policies
that were not justified by their inherent strength. In addition to American
support, Pakistan has also long enjoyed a mutually beneficial strategic
relationship with China, and this combination of alliances has allowed us
to punch above our weight regionally. However, while American support for
Israel has, if anything, grown stronger under Clinton, Pakistan's stock in
Washington has fallen sharply with the end of the cold war. So while Israel
can afford to continue bombing Lebanon with impunity, Pakistan is being
forced to make painful changes in its external policy, especially with
regard to India.
Nawaz Sharif has grasped these changes far more quickly than our military
and foreign policy establishments. He has sent out feelers to New Delhi,
and has finally initiated a dialogue between the two countries after years
of debilitating and dangerous deadlock. The outcome of this process is
uncertain, but it is now abundantly clear that we can no longer sustain the
level of defence spending the military has grown accustomed to over the years.
Obviously, the purpose of entering into alliances and strategic
relationships is to strengthen defence capabilities and to achieve
objectives deemed desirable by nation-states. However, the danger lies in
countries becoming totally dependent on external support in formulating
their foreign policies, and then suddenly having to fend for themselves
after years of dependence. Imagine Israel's plight if all American military
and economic assistance were to be cut off overnight. It would quickly
scramble to mend fences with its neighbours; however, it could do so from a
position of strength, given the weakness of its foes and the fact that it
is sitting on their land.
In our case, however, India has grown progressively stronger in every
sphere. Internationally, it is perceived as a major player diplomatically,
and a huge potential market. In the Islamic world, our stock has been
falling over the years as country after country has muted its support over
the unending Kashmir dispute. We have successfully used up what little
goodwill was left over through our half-baked Afghan policy which has
antagonised virtually every country in the region. Our isolation is thus
complete, so as we try and modify our foreign policy, at least towards
India, we do so from a position of weakness.
The lesson to be drawn from this parallel between Israel and Pakistan is
that one should not put all one's eggs in one basked unless it is a very
solid basket indeed.
===================================================================
970818
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Need to arrange funds for next year's sports agenda
--------------------------------------------------------------------
A. Majid Khan
1998 would be a very busy year for Pakistan for it would be competing in
the South Asian Federation (SAF) Games in Kathmandu, the Asian Games in
Bangkok and the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur incurring an expense of
over Rs. 15 million (Rs over one and a half crore) in sending national
squads for participation in the different disciplines of the three games.
Actually, the SAF Games were scheduled this year in Kathmandu but had to be
postponed for early next year as hosts Nepal required more time.
The past practice bears testimony to the fact that Pakistan Sports Board
usually met the huge expenditures out of the public money. If we look back
into the 50 years history of Pakistan's participation in these Games, the
PSB had already spent crores of rupees, apparently at the cost of creating
the much needed infrastructure in various parts of the country. Even today
the PSB national coaching centres in the four provincial capitals are in a
poor state.
Financing of the squads for the Asian Games, the Commonwealth Games, the
World Olympics is not the responsibility of the Islamabad-based PSB,
barring the SAF Games for which the federal government has assumed
responsibility. But the SAF Games squad could also be curtailed as
participation in every discipline is not mandatory.
Then who is responsible for participation in the next year's Asian and
Commonwealth Games? The answer is simple. The Pakistan Olympic Association
is under obligation for sending the national contingents to the Asian and
Commonwealth Games as well as for the 2000 Sydney World Olympics.
However, for years the POA had shifted its responsibility to the PSB for
financing the national squads. It had virtually exploited the financial
resources of the Pakistan Sports Board whose highups, too, were involved in
squandering public money and the hard-earned foreign exchange as they too
had the joy ride trips. The resultant lack of required playing facilities
throughout the country had contributed a lot towards the steep decline of
our overall standards.
Neither the POA generate fund through sponsorship for financing the tours
nor it creates playing facilities then what service it is rendering for the
uplift of the games in the country? Over 30 national federations are
affiliated with the POA and the POA do not extend any financial help to its
affiliated units. Rather, these National organisations get grants from the
PSB.
Perhaps nowhere such a system exists that public money is being used by a
national Olympic organisation for training of squads as well as for the
trips. The prevailing pattern needs a total change as the country's
financial health is also not too good. Hence the federal government has
embarked on a policy to withdraw its subsidy to lessen its financial burden
in the wake of unsatisfactory economic conditions.
In such a situation the PSB financing of the Pakistan squads for the 1998
Games should be drastically curtailed for it is not its constitutional
obligation. Let the PSB give a token grant for the next year's trips to the
POA, making it quite clear to it that the Government cannot finance the trips.
The POA, an affiliated unit of the International Olympic Committee (IOC),
the controlling body of world sports, under the IOC charter, cannot demand
money for financing the squad for the World Olympics, the Asian Games and
the Commonwealth Games.
The POA can easily seek sponsorship and generate funds for financing the
national squads as usually practised in other countries.
The IOC is against the government interference in the affairs of the POA
and the national federations but the IOC had never taken notice of the fact
that the POA and its national federations are doing nothing positive for
sports promotion and are also heavily relying on the government for
financing the trips all the time. Surprising enough a number of national
federations usually threaten to withdraw their squad from the games in case
the number of their competitors is curtailed due to financial reasons.
In such a situation the PSB should adopt a clear-cut policy in respect of
financing the 1998 Pakistan squads for the games, now intimating the POA
that it must generate funds for the 1998 trips as the PSB would not be in a
position of funding the tours.
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970818
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500 plus in least number of Tests
--------------------------------------------------------------------
M. Shoaib Ahmed
Sri Lankan opener Sanath Jayasuriya became 'just the second player in Test
history to aggregate 500 plus in a two Tests rubber'. Earlier, England's
Walter Hammond compiled 500-plus in a two Test rubber in New Zealand over
64 years ago. He scored 227 in the first Test at Christchurch and an
unbeaten 336 in the second at Auckland. Just two innings in the 2-Test
rubber. A fantastic performance without parallel in Test annals. Surely, he
should take precedence ahead of the eight batsman who did it in three Tests.
This study includes all those who have aggregated 500-plus in 4 or less
Tests, even if the actual rubber may be of 5 Tests, as applicable to Bill
Ponsford 1934, Doug Walters 1968-69; Sunil Gavaskar and Charlie Davis
1970-71; and Vivian Richards 1976 (see table).
It will be observed that there are 29 instances of 27 batsmen performing
this feat, Sunil Gavaskar and Vivian Richards being the only ones to
figures twice on the list: There are five Englishmen, four Australians,
seven West Indians, four Pakistanis, three Indians, two South Africans, and
a solitary Sri Lankan, and New Zealander in this record section.
Only four of the 27 batsmen had the supreme distinction of performing the
feat on their Test debut - West Indies' George Headley (1930), South
Africa's Barry Richards (1969-70), India's Sunil Gavaskar(1970-71) and
Pakistan's Javed Miandad (1976-77).
Sri Lanka's Aravinda de Silva wrote his name into the record books with the
second century of the match in second and final match at Colombo (SSC) in
August 12, 1997. Aravinda became the seventh player to perform a century in
both innings of a Test match second time. Sunil Gavaskar holds the record
of registering separate hundreds in the same Test on as many as three
occasions, whilst England's Herbert Sutcliffe, Australia's Greg Chappell
and Allan Border, West Indies' George Headley and Clyde Walcott have each
done it twice.
The West Indian Lawrence Rowe is the only one to perform this twin century
feat on his test debut. The Aussie Allan Border is the only one to register
150-plus in both innings. The Sri Lankan Duleep Mendis is the only to hit
exactly the same score in each innings. Two Aussies brothers, Ian and Greg
Chappell, created a unique and hitherto unprecedented record of both
hitting two separate 'tons' in each innings of the same Test.
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970820
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Cricketers to be bound to play for country
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Sports Correspondent
LAHORE, Aug 19: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Syed Zulifqar Ali
Shah Bukhari said that in future the board would sign contract with
cricketers to bind them to play for the national team.
Talking to journalists at the Qadhafi Stadium , the PCB chairman said that
the seniors players by signing contacts with different English counties had
caused great damage to the national team. That forced the board to adopt a
policy to check this trend, he said. A policy in this connection would be
implemented from next year, he said. Presently, Bukhari admitted that the
cricketers were not under the control of the board. He expressed the hope
that the policy would also help the PCB to maintain discipline among the
players.
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970820
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More series with arch-rivals in future
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Sports Reporter
KARACHI, Aug 19: Time is not far when Pakistan and India will have more
frequent visits across the border.
India make their first visit to Pakistan in nine years when they arrive
here on Sept 25 for three one-day international series to be played at
Karachi (Sept 28), Hyderabad (Sept 30) and Lahore (Oct 2).
Next year in March-April, an Indian A side will visit Pakistan for at least
three unofficial Tests. An Indian junior team last came here in 1988 whose
notable members were Ajay Jadeja, Nayan Mongia. Sachin Tendulkar because of
his exams couldn't come.
Then Pakistan senior string will go to India for a series of five Tests and
six one-day internationals likely to be played between January-March 1999.
It will be Pakistan's first Test tour visit since 1986-87 when Imran Khan's
men won the historic Test at Bangalore which helped them win the Test
series 1-0. Pakistan also won the one-day series 5-1.
The credit for reviving the India-Pakistan cricket relations must be given
to Majid Khan. It is because of his efforts and interest that Pakistan and
India will be exchanging tours that have been fixed on priority basis. It
may be recalled that the three above discussed series' were not in
Pakistan's packed cricket calendar till 2003.
"The job of the PCB is to provide maximum opportunity to the foreign teams
to come here and our teams to go abroad," said Majid Khan, adding: "We are
trying to have three-tyre system - Under-19, A-team and the senior team."
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970821
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Majid for strong cricket base
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Walter Fernandez
KARACHI, Aug 20: "It is my considered opinion that we have a base of only
7,000 cricketers in the country that are playing the game at club level on
a regular basis and which forms the grassroot for selection in the National
squad," stated Majid Khan, the Chief Executive (CE) of the Pakistan Cricket
Board (PCB) in an exclusive interview to `Dawn' here on Wednesday.
"The majority of people think there is a glut of talent in Pakistan because
young lads are seen playing on the streets around the country. But that is
not so. One can never perfect his game in this particular fashion," opined
the PCB CE and former Pakistan captain. "Today cricket like any other game
is an industry and as such should be treated in this way. Gone are the
days, when cricket was played as a pastime. Big money is being poured into
cricket and everyone from the organisers, players and all those who are
associated with it should be aware of this fact," said Majid Khan, former
Pakistan opener.
"Everyone should begin to think on these lines and adjust their good old
attitude, to cope with these changed times," added the PCB CE.
"As the Chief Executive of the PCB, what I am striving to achieve is to
strengthen the game at the grassroots by introducing sponsorship for
associations," explained the former Pakistan Captain.
"I am working on the modalities and once I have finalised that by speaking
to the people in Pakistan Television to cover the game at the city and
regional phase, I will get back to them and I am pretty hopeful the
required response from the sponsors will be forthcoming, said Majid Khan.
"Until and unless we improve the infrastructure we would not be able to
promote the game at the grassroots and that will have a restraining
effect," opined Majid.
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970821
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Pakistan to make token participation
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Ilyas Beg
LAHORE, Aug 20: Barring only a few disciplines in which chances of winning
some medals are bright, Pakistan will make token participation, next year,
in some events of the 16th Commonwealth Games being organised at Kuala
Lumpur from Sept 11 to 20 and the 13th Asian Games being held at Bangkok
from Dec 6 to 20.
Briefing mediamen at the conclusion of the Pakistan Olympic Association
(POA) executive committee meeting, secretary general Muhammad Latif Butt
said that Pakistan contingent in the Commonwealth Games would have a full
team of 16 players and four officials but have only a few outstanding
performers in the following disciplines: athletics, swimming, badminton,
boxing, cycling, gymnastics, shooting and weightlifting. It was being done
due to financial constraints.
"As for the non-Olympic sport like squash, the POA representatives,
particularly president Syed Wajid Ali Shah, have been constantly advocating
its case at different fora for many years and for the first time got it
included in the programme of the Commonwealth and Asian Games. Pakistan has
bright prospects of winning medals in squash in those Games...
"...Pakistan has also good chances of winning a medal in cricket, which has
been included in the Commonwealth Games also for the first time. It is also
a non-Olympic sport and we have written to the Government to co-ordinate
with the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and make arrangements for
participation of the Pakistan cricket team", said the POA secretary general.
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970823
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Akhtar Rasool faces tough hockey agenda
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Walter Fernandez
KARACHI, Aug 22: For the third time in a little more than 15 months the
Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has elected a new President in the person
of former Olympian Akhtar Rasool Chowdhry.
The change of guard was brought about after the resignation of Mr. Mohammad
Nawaz Tiwana, for the second time.
It is after almost two decades that the PHF President beginning with Air
Marshal (Retd) Nur Khan, is not a man who is either the Chairman or
Managing Director of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).
Like his father Olympian Ghulam Rasool, Akhtar went on to captain the
Pakistan hockey team. However, Akhtar Rasool in two Olympic hockey
campaigns was forced to remain content with the silver medal at the Munich
Olympics in 1972 and the bronze in the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. But
Akhtar Rasool can gratify himself with the thought of having captained the
1982 Bombay World Cup winning squad.
Nonetheless, as the cliche goes heavy lies the head that wears the crown.
In the next 15 months Akhtar Rasool besides devoting his time towards
raising funds for the precarious PHF coffers will be confronted with a very
heavy international hockey agenda.
Beginning from September this year and concluding at the close of December
1998, Pakistan will be pitched into battle in six major international
hockey tournaments.
>From Sept 17 to 28 this year the Pakistan Juniors will be playing in the
final round of the sixth Junior World Cup Hockey Tournament at Milton
Keynes (England). Pakistan having won the inaugural tournament at
Versailles (France) in 1979 have failed to win the trophy again.
The nearest the Pakistan Juniors have come to emulate that feat was in
Terassa (Spain) four years ago under the stewardship of the present Manager
former Olympian Samiullah. In the previous three tournaments the Pakistan
Juniors only managed to conjure up the bronze medal.
Then from Oct 11 to 17, 1997 the Pakistan Senior will be playing in the
Champions Trophy World Hockey Tournament at Adelaide. Pakistan after
clinching the trophy twice in the years 1978 and 1980, were not able to
regain it for 14-long years until 1994 at Lahore. But last December at
Madras a rebuilt Pakistan squad just failed in their effort to retain the
trophy but gained some consolation by claiming the second spot.
In 1998, the Pakistan Seniors will be engaged in four major international
competitions. Starting in April, Pakistan is slated play in the Lahore
Champions Trophy as hosts, dates of which are yet to be notified.
Both the Champions Trophy competitions will see six of the world's top
hockey playing countries in action.
The Pakistan Seniors will then be called upon to defend its title as
champions in the ninth World Cup Hockey Tournament to be held at Ucrecht
(Netherlands) from May 21 to June 1.
>From Sept 10 to 20, the Pakistan Seniors will play in the Commonwealth
Games hockey event at Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) where the discipline has been
added for the first time. Besides Pakistan, Australia, India and South
Africa, a rising hockey powerhouse, will also be vying for the gold medal.
The year will be drawn to a close with the Asian Games to be staged at
Bangkok (Thailand) from Dec 6 to 20. The Pakistan Seniors will once again
have to defeat perennial rivals reigning champions South Korea and former
champions India, if at all, they are to regain the gold medal.
By every reckonning, the last nine months of 1998 will be an enormously
testing occasion not only for Pakistan but also the other top-four hockey
countries.
Training and getting the team to peak in four tournaments in span of three
quarters of a year is bound to pose a harrowing time for anyone let alone
the President of the PHF, Akhtar Rasool Chowdhry.
To put it quite frankly, the Pakistani nation simply yearns for success but
anything short of the will call for heads to roll, and that is that.
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970818
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World Athletic meet and Pakistan
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Lateef Jafri
THE World Athletic Championships are as much a test of speed, stamina and
strength of the competitors - male and female - as the Olympics, last held
in the American city of Atlanta. The meet had a special significance as it
was organised where the modern games were revived in 1896.
The weather was pleasant, the setting and atmosphere were perfect in August
for the athletes to give of their best and snap as many records as possible
which they had promised in some of their pre-championship feats.
Pakistan's participation was nominal since it was difficult for any entrant
from this country to measure strength with the pick of the world. However,
for countries trying hard to improve their athletic standards,
participation was mandatory and the sportsmen and women were financed by
the International Amateur Athletic Federation, including the corps of
officials and coaches. The Pakistan athletic organisation chose Mohsin
Munir, national champion in the 400 metres flat. No doubt Mohsin was a
winner in the 26th National Games as he was in the previous gathering in
Quetta and had defended his position in the Larkana championship of January
this year, yet Athens was a tall order for him. It, however, can be assumed
that it may prove a good exposure for him; he may in future improve his
speed and timing. In the next regional meet, the SAF Games (the venue and
dates of which are still to be confirmed) perhaps he will be able to make
his mark and show the gains from his presence in Athens.
Mohsin failed to qualify for the next round in the heats where the runners
were storming to touch the tape in 48 seconds or less. A South Korean, Ju
Il Shon, came to the finishing line in 47.47 seconds to be among the
qualifiers. An Algerian, A. Louahia, Qatar's Ismail and Sri Lanka's S.
Thilakarantne tried hard with 46.22, 45.88 and a fine 45.58 respectively to
move to the semis but could not be successful.
Mohsin's winning time in Karachi's National Games was 49.01, where he had
no challenge from the second placed Basit Munir. In Quetta Mohsin Munir had
done better with 48.4 seconds. Certainly he struggled in Athens where even
Michael Johnson, a wild card entry but Olympic gold medallist, just scraped
to the finals. The Texan, unbeaten for the last eight years but outside his
country's team for the world athletics having missed the American trials,
exhibited his characteristic style in the one-lap race to strongly cruise
home in an impressive 44.12. Johnson was not among the favourites due to
injury some weeks before the Athens competition yet he ran remarkably well
and showed amazing leg speed against a very strong field. Munir must have
seen Johnson's galloping strides and may have learnt the finer points of
the 400 meters dash.
One feels that Abdul Razzaq, the high hurdler, too should have been given a
chance to go to Athens to improve his running. With 15.06 seconds on
Karachi's tartan tracks or 14.6 at Quetta he may only have been among the
also-rans. But Razzaq had displayed his talents at the SAF Games at Madras
with a clocking of 14.12, a considerable improvement from his previous
efforts in home meets.
In the 110 metres hurdles the American, Allen Johnson, broke the 13 second
barrier and even the Briton, Colin Jackson, floated smoothly over the
sticks and ran powerfully in the straight to record a time of 13.05.
Johnson's clocking was two 100th of a second outside the world record of
Jackson but experts predict the mark to be smashed in the near future.
Johnson, the Olympic winner, defended his world championship honours, and
ran the fifth fastest hurdles in history.
Why no female athlete was sent to Athens, ask the fans of the track and
field? After all Shabana Akhtar was a record holder in broad jump in the
last SAF Games at Madras with 6.30 metres. She snapped the mark standing in
the name of Indian Reeth Abrahams since 1989. Being a specialist in the
short sprints and 100 metres hurdles she would have improved by leaps and
bounds. The followers of athletics consider it to be a discouragement and
an injustice.
No doubt the officials will point out the high standard at Athens. But
Shabana would have enhanced her speed, honed her technique and increased
the leap in alien venues and settings.
The competition among women jumpers was hard. But the qualifiers crossed
6.61 metres. Compare the distance with the 6.30 metres of Shabana. She may
have just been in the final with a slight better effort. The gold
medallist, Ludmila Godkina of Russia, had a mighty jump of 7.05, depriving
the Greek favourite, Niki Xanthou, of the top honours despite the support
the latter got from the home supporters, whose only interest was to see
Niki go to the top.
Sri Lanka's Susanthika Jayasinghe confounded the prophets by taking a
silver in the 200 metres flat dash. With a sharp race right from the
blocks, she pipped the famed Jamaican, Marlene Ottey at the tape to take
her rightful place at the podium. Ukraine's Zhanna Pintissevich was the
winner. The Sri Lankan was out quickly and ran a superb bend to beat Ottey
but try as she did she could not catch the Ukrainian who was timed 22.32
seconds as the electronic board lighted up to signal the results.
Susanthika, who broke three Asian records in the heats and the semis, came
to the finish in a graceful style to a 22.39 clocking. Ottey was dejected
with the end of her four-year reign as champion. However, the Sri Lankan
proved herself to be a world class runner and may be a serious contender
for top honours in future world outings.
Susanthika was given an enthusiastic welcome on return to Colombo with many
awards and gifts.
Why can't Pakistan emulate the Sri Lankans? There should be regular dual
meets. Both Pakistan's male and female athletes will improve by the
strenuous efforts in the disciplines.
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