Another clash?
November 17th, 2012
It's that time of year again. For the more conspiracy-minded Pakistanis, enough has happened in the last few days to get them wondering if a new front has opened up in the land that lurches from one real or perceived clash of institutions to another. Through a slew of cases, the judiciary charges or accuses serving and retired army generals of everything from picking up people in Balochistan and rigging the 1990 election to mismanagement and corruption at the NLC, Pakistan Railways and Fauji Foundation. The chief justice announces that “missiles and tanks” will not keep Pakistan secure, and a few days later issues another public defence of accountability and the constitution. A petition questioning the army chief’s extension is revived, and the Rawalpindi bar passes a hard hitting statement against the COAS. Meanwhile, Gen Kayani publicly asks institutions to stay within their domains and the lawyer filing the petition against extension gets beaten up by unidentified thugs.
That is enough to lead to wild speculation and rumour-mongering in Pakistan, but it is also enough to raise the need — yet again, sadly — to urge all parties involved to take a deep breath and a step back. The government and the judiciary seem to be getting along better, especially since they reached an understanding on the Swiss letter, even though the Supreme Court continues to intervene in some areas where the executive should have the last word. And while the government has from time to time tried to challenge the military, it has largely accepted the limits of how far it can go on that front and has worked out ways to keep itself in power, if not fully in control. But now a judge-versus-general tussle could be brewing, and it has the potential to create instability just as Pakistan is six months away from the finish line of on-time elections.
This is not to say that corruption charges against the military should not be investigated to the fullest extent. The revival of the petition against Gen Kayani’s extension is also perfectly legitimate. The timing of the move is arguably suspicious, since the petition has been rejected before, but on its merits the case is a strong one. What is needlessly provocative, though, are public speeches asserting the judiciary’s superiority and tacit encouragement to lawyers’ associations to jump into the fray. The same goes for the khakis: public pronouncements and a blatant physical attack on a perceived troublemaker will achieve nothing more than raising tensions. Both these institutions have plenty of work to do to address the real challenges the country is facing. Can they afford these petty distractions?
Lame excuses
November 17th, 2012
This week the Supreme Court was informed by the national carrier’s own counsel that PIA’s accumulated losses have risen to Rs119bn. This is a staggering figure even though it has been at least eight years in the making. In the nine-month period running from January to October 2012, PIA posted a loss of over Rs22bn, which had been Rs19bn in the corresponding period the previous year. The airline’s losses began in 2004 and have gathered momentum ever since, in spite of sharp increases in the cost of travel. The present authorities, through their counsel, have told the Supreme Court that they will not accept responsibility for the failures of past managements, thus implying that since the accumulated losses were largely incurred by previous PIA managements, no explanation will be provided for them today.
This is a deplorable attitude. Ever since the current losses started becoming apparent, the airline has been serving up one excuse after another to explain them away — all the while increasing passenger fares sharply. Last year’s annual report, for instance, blamed the losses on factors like “slow economic growth in developed economies” and “the Gulf countries, natural disasters and continued global recession” and the depreciation of the rupee. The latest quarterly results, filed in October from where the carrier’s counsel took the figure of Rs119bn in accumulated losses, add “turmoil in the Middle East, uncertainty about eurozone economies, stress on Pak-US relations” to the list. This is an old trick that managements typically use to explain their poor performance as they hide from the headlines. The board of directors has a duty to ask the necessary questions that cut through this fog of hype and zero in on the main issue: why are operating losses mounting in spite of passing the costs of rising fuel prices to the passenger? The fact that PIA has been able to include such diverse and frivolous reasons in its annual reports shows that the board of directors has not been doing its job of properly monitoring the management’s performance. Perhaps the Supreme Court should ask the board to explain.
Ineffective solutions
November 17th, 2012
High drama was witnessed on Thursday when Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced that motorcycles would not be allowed to ply the roads of Karachi and Quetta on Friday, the first day of Muharram. In its turn, the Sindh High Court, responding to a petition, swung into action late Thursday night, suspending the interior minister’s ban. While Karachi’s million-plus motorcyclists must have been pleased with the court’s intervention, the Balochistan government decided to implement Mr Malik’s order, though the ban was challenged in the Balochistan High Court on Friday. The action against two-wheelers was taken due to fears that motorcycles may be used in acts of terrorism; Mr Malik told the Senate on Friday that motorbikes had been used to carry out over 400 bombings across the country. And in what now appears to have become standard operating procedure during any major religious occasion or whenever there are heightened threats of terrorism, cellphone services in Karachi and Quetta were also suspended on Friday.
These methods are arbitrary and unlikely to counter terrorism in a big way. They are easy ways for the government to wriggle out of its responsibility of maintaining law and order. The logic behind the motorcycle ban is shaky; if tomorrow there are intelligence reports that cars or trucks will be used in acts of terrorism, will the state order all vehicles off the road? True, perhaps the SHC should have acted more prudently and listened to the government’s view before suspending the ban as it is not clear whether the court was aware of the threat level. Nevertheless, while various remedies have been given for the security situation, especially in Karachi, and have included Senator Raza Rabbani’s impractical solutions, little has been done to beef up intelligence-gathering and counterterrorism efforts. These would be far more effective than stopgap measures which paralyse daily life.