Missing Benazir
IN a country caught in a vicious circle, a good amount of time is spent pondering over `what could have been`. Just a few days ago, we spent Dec 25, the Quaid’s birthday, imagining what Pakistan’s founder could have achieved had he not died so soon after the country`s birth. On Jan 5 which is Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto`s birthday the topic will be the late leader`s contribution to popular politics, his successes and blunders, and, of course, his unfulfilled promise. Today, on Dec 27, on the seventh death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto, the talk will focus on how we lost her just when she showed signs of a maturity worthy of national leadership. It is not a question of comparison with other popular leaders of the past; the feeling, compounded by the wide posthumous approval of Benazir, is that she was brutally taken away from us at a time when the country was in dire need of her.
Much of this approval can be ascribed to our tendency to accept the merit of a politician when he or she is no more. All three politicians mentioned were less controversial, in fact the subject of unconditional reverence, when they were not there to counter anyone`s politics.
So what is it that we now surmise Benazir could have achieved had she taken up the reins of government in 2008? There is agreement that as the force behind the Charter of Democracy she would have shunned confrontation (of the 1990s, lest we forget) and promoted reconciliation. But then, despite all the respect that she has received in recent years, there is some truth to the argument that it was she who initiated compromise and a taming of the old PPP, manifest in her `deal` with Pervez Musharraf. Her heir, Asif Ali Zardari, it is argued, was only following her lead when he solicited partnerships with political opponents of all stripes and when he made `ideological adjustments` Yes, Mr Zardari lacked Benazir`s charisma, and even more importantly, her reputation.
That has led to comparisons between his recent troubled stint, and how it could have been had Benazir been there to spearhead this country through a full term in office, something she was never allowed to do.
But more than that, what many are missing is Benazir Bhutto the opposition leader. It was a role in which she made so much sense just like her party which has since been replaced by Mr Zardari`s passive PPP, which offers the people across Pakistan little in its latest avatar. It is a more fearful than careful player who is too wise for its own good. Meanwhile, a very large number of Pakistanis would find it difficult to even imagine Benazir abstaining from opposition politics which had been the PPP`s forte. Every time Mr Zardari so proudly claims to be not doing politics he creates a longing for the past and for what could have been.
Gasping for gas
THE gas shortages in Punjab have created a dire situation where people have to manage without the fuel to cook food or heat homes and water when temperatures are hitting lows of four degrees Celsius. The situation was aggravated in the past seven days due to an outage at the Sui gas field that caused a drop of almost 250 million cubic feet of gas per day in the system, although that problem appears to have been rectified as of Thursday. But the shortages are growing by the year. In December 2011, for example, the size of the nationwide shortfall crossed a benchmark of one billion cubic feet per day. This winter it crossed 2bcfd, meaning it doubled in three years. At least a quarter of this growth in demand was the result of new gas connections granted by the previous government. The present government has also abandoned any effort to freeze the grant of new gas connections, because the pressures creating the demand are too powerful to resist through simple executive actions. Only a few days ago, the MD of SNGPL said he had a backlog of 1.5m applications for new connections. By all accounts, demand for natural gas will continue to grow exponentially in the years to come.
But all is not lost. Some steps to increase supplies are seeing credible movement. An LNG import terminal, with a capacity of 600mmcfd, is scheduled to become operational by end January. A pipeline to bring an additional 1.3bcfd from Turkmenistan is moving ahead as well, although a significant question mark hangs over the project. But even in the best-case scenario, these projects will plug today`s shortfall by 2017, by which time the gap would have grown bigger still. In fact, all steps being taken to increase supplies will always lag behind the pace of demand. Therefore, it is important to realise that the shortages have become a permanent feature of our lives. In an era of ever-dwindling supplies, it is necessary to think about adapting to the shortages in addition to increasing supplies. Reducing leakages from the distribution system and urging efficiency in the utilisation of gas is crucial. But these priorities need to be supplemented by proper pricing reform as well as improved building codes to ensure that new homes are more heat-efficient.
Weaning ourselves off our addiction to natural gas will not be easy, but it is the only way forward.
Picture of hunger
WEARY years of experience have taught Pakistanis that there is often a huge gap between the good intentions of the government of the day and its ability to mobilise the political will required to actually produce tangible improvements on the ground. For this reason, while the establishment of a federal-level National Food Security Commission must be welcomed, we must also stress on the need for it to truly prove its mettle over the coming months and years. Headed by the prime minister and with a federal minister as the deputy chairman, the plan to set up such a commission was announced as part of the 2014-15 budget. As reported, the commission has well-defined areas to work on: from getting the centre, the provinces and the administrative regions to agree on a policy for food security, to directing resources for the development of agriculture, strengthening the export infrastructure, and ensuring sufficient nourishment for vulnerable segments. As in other areas of devolution, in the case of agriculture too, it seems that the centre and the provinces have not been able to coordinate paving the way for hunger and malnutrition for large sections of the population.
It is to be fervently hoped that this commission proves of more value than others of a similar nature that have been seen over the decades. The fact of the matter is that despite being a country with agriculture as the base of its economy, there are legions of poor that do not have enough food. Indeed, surveys have shown that around 60pc of the country’s population could be food insecure with women and children bearing the brunt. From food scarcity to the rising prices of edibles, and from malnutrition to outright hunger, Pakistan desperately needs to address its food security issues, to say nothing of updating and making more productive the agricultural sector which continues to depend on outmoded practices that do not have ideal cost-benefit ratios. The problems are many and critical; will the commission prove itself up to the task?