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Maroof Hussain Chishty · #**365** Saturday, August 14, 2010

Something missing

Saturday, 14 Aug, 2010

Somehow the level of empathy that ought to be on offer is missing this time round. According to the UN, some 13.8 million people have been displaced or otherwise affected by this summer’s floods while over 1,500 have been killed.

It is said that the number of affectees is now greater than those hit by the 2004 tsunami and the earthquakes in Kashmir and Haiti in 2005 and 2010. A total bigger, it should be stressed, than the victims of those three terrible disasters put together. Yet, the kind of spontaneous public support, large-scale donations and assistance by volunteers that was in evidence following the 2005 earthquake is nowhere to be seen. True, some organisations are doing their bit and the government is scrambling to make up for its initial failures. But still there is something missing: widespread giving and the ability to relate to the plight of people who have lost everything.

In part, perhaps, the public has not been so generous in its support because the death count has been nowhere near the devastation caused by the 2005 earthquake. Also, it must be remembered that earthquakes are sudden cataclysmic events and can kill thousands within minutes while floods build up over time. There is often an advance warning, at least in the lower riparian areas, and this can lead to a sense of inevitability and the feeling that there is little one can do in response. Nothing is further from the truth. There is plenty that we as a nation can and must do to help those whose lives have been shattered by the ongoing floods. We need to open our hearts, and our wallets, to our fellow Pakistanis. The immediate concern is relief work but the long-term rehabilitation that most affectees will require should not be forgotten.

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Air crash inquiry

Dawn Editorial
Saturday, 14 Aug, 2010

While the families of the passengers and crew who perished in the Margalla plane crash two and a half weeks ago are still in mourning, they must inevitably deal with the issue of compensation.

However, in addition to the need to ensure adequate monetary compensation for the deaths of the grieving families’ relatives, justice for the air crash victims and their surviving families demands a thorough public investigation to verify any act of omission or commission which could have resulted in the tragedy. Justice would not be served if the inquiry into the Margalla air crash met the same fate as the other inquiries conducted into numerous air crashes involving Pakistani commercial carriers. These were kept away from the eyes of the public with the crash officially being attributed to ‘pilot error’.

If the inquiry into the Margalla air crash is to be one that will help prevent such tragedies from happening again, it would have to go beyond merely blaming easy targets like the pilot or the weather. Pakistan is rated Category 1 in the International Aviation Safety Assessment Programme, which determines whether a country — not individual air carriers — adheres to international standards and recommended practices for aircraft operation and maintenance established by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. Nevertheless concerns about traffic control protocols and navigation aids, especially at Islamabad’s airport, have reportedly been raised by industry experts. Earlier, in 2007, safety issues about Pakistan’s air industry had been highlighted when the European Union banned the national airline’s flights, apparently because of concerns related to an aging fleet. The inquiry into the Margalla tragedy constitutes the first of its kind into a private airline’s crash since private commercial carriers emerged in the country in the 1990s; the other plane crashes have involved the national carrier. Only by making the Margalla air crash inquiry — and other air crash probes — public can we hope to determine and efficiently implement corrective measures to halt what many experts maintain are falling aviation and safety standards in an industry that has been booming because of an increase in travelling demands.

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Food reserves

Dawn Editorial
Saturday, 14 Aug, 2010

The latest estimate on crop damage by no less a person than the World Bank president Robert Zoellick is a sobering one: approximately $1bn of crops have been destroyed in the country.

That figure is almost certainly going to be crossed, however, as local experts are warning that the destruction of rice, cotton, sugarcane, tobacco and other cash crops could exceed Rs250bn (approximately $3bn). The onset of Ramazan, when the demand for fruit and vegetables spikes, has already led to reports of price increases of between 25-50 per cent in many areas. At this point, the real danger that must be prevented from materialising is the knock-on effect: farmland must be prepared in time for the next crop season so as to prevent the crisis continuing in the year ahead. A report in this newspaper yesterday underlined what an immense challenge that will be. The 1,000 tractors thought to be lost so far represent a tiny fraction of the damage to agricultural infrastructure that the floods will have caused.

Another area that must be of focus in the months ahead is the agricultural buffer stocks system, meant to insure against crises and calamities. Take the issue of wheat. In April, when it became clear there was a surplus of approximately one and a half million tonnes of wheat in the country (production this year plus four million tonnes of wheat carried over from last year) some voices began to suggest that wheat should be exported. Low international prices made the idea unattractive, but certain influential lobbies pressed ahead, arguing for a subsidy to make exports possible. The idea was resisted and that has proved to be a prescient decision. Had the wheat been exported, Pakistanis would have faced a spike in wheat and wheat flour prices, with the high demand in Ramazan compounding the problem. Given an annual demand of over 26 million tonnes, it may not be immediately apparent why the export of 1.5 million tonnes could push prices dramatically upwards. However, it is in the nature of the market that a five to 10 per cent shortage can cause prices to shoot up disproportionately. That is exactly what happened a few years ago during the regime of Gen Musharraf when permission was granted to export wheat and subsequently the wheat crop failed to meet official estimates.

The lesson, then, is that a reasonable agricultural crop buffer is necessary for food security in the country. The government must therefore work to insulate the system of buffer stocks from political pressure by placing it in the hands of independent professionals.

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