Date: Saturday, February 20, 2016.
A NAB too far
If the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is causing such discomfort to a range of politicians across the country, then it stands to reason that it must be doing something right. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is so exercised that he is seemingly mulling a revision in the way in which matters relating to accountability are pursued and managed. Few politicians anywhere in the world welcome their affairs being scrutinised, even fewer in a country where corruption and political skulduggery are the norm rather than the exception. Corruption is rife across the entire political spectrum, from the lowest ward level to the highest offices in the land.
Of late, NAB has been knocking on any number of doors and finds itself accused of overreach, going beyond its mandate. The prime minister delivered a thinly veiled warning that action would be taken if this continued unabated — and he now appears willing to be as good as his word.
If ever a country needed a body that was able to investigate abuses of power and privilege, it is Pakistan. To be scrupulously fair, we would not support the harassment of individuals who are free of taint or suspicion, all too easily done, but we would also not support any development that served to insulate those in power from scrutiny, no matter how exalted they might be. Investigative bodies do need to have their terms of reference and mandates clearly delimited, but we wonder if the creation of the supra-commission currently under consideration is the right way to go. The government might argue that it is merely ‘guarding the guards’ but it looks uncommonly like a knee-jerk reaction to some uncomfortable, if opportunist, digging by NAB. Nothing is about to happen overnight but revision of accountability processes is on the agenda and likely to be pursued with some diligence. That some form of revision was in the mind of government in the historical past may be true, but it should not be allowed to inhibit investigations into some senior members of the ruling party in Punjab by NAB. We will follow closely and with interest.
The Kisan package — a mirage
The Kisan package, announced by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif around the time of the local government elections, has not just faced incessant delays in its implementation, but some of its components are just a repeat of the budget measures announced in June 2015. In a recent briefing to the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance, it was revealed that the government’s half-hearted attempts have resulted in most parts of the Rs341 billion package not being implemented, casting a huge question mark on the PM-level announcement. The much-trumpeted cash assistance was restricted to Punjab, as other provinces have so far been unwilling to delve into their wallets. However, some areas where progress has been made is subsidising the purchase of fertilisers and supporting sugar mills in exporting the commodity.
Repeating and remodeling measures and compiling them into a Rs341-billion package may manage to win the hearts of the farming community for a while, but persistent delays will not keep it quiet for too long. The package was announced supposedly to support low-income farmers bear the wrath of falling commodity prices. It was meant to uplift the low-income group and facilitate it in acquiring loans for machinery and raw material. Floods have not helped the farmers’ cause and the package was meant to mitigate some of their losses. But when the country’s finance secretary admits — five months after the package and eight months after the budget was announced — that it will take another two months to implement it on a larger scale, there are bound to be some raised eyebrows. For once, we would like the PML-N to act like a democratic, forthcoming government. Farmers can see through its shenanigans. It seems that true progress is usually only made close to the general elections when the government is in need of votes, and not when it is trying to pacify the IMF through a reduction in the budget deficit. It is all about timing for this business-minded government.
Inefficient in innovation
During the past few days, Dr Nergis Mavalvala was in the news for being part of a team, which had made a historic scientific discovery by detecting gravitational waves. Her Pakistani background was highlighted and celebrated. Everyone from the prime minister downwards expressed their pride at her achievement. However, the fact that Dr Mavalvala’s success is not reflective of the state of education and scientific innovation in Pakistan was largely ignored. This point has now been brought home by the Global Innovation Index Report of 2015 in which Pakistan ranks an abysmal 131 out of 141 countries. This is not surprising, since according to the Ministry of Science and Technology, the current allocation for research and development is only 0.29 per cent of GDP. There is no clearer way than this to indicate our lack of interest in higher education and science. This, after all, is the country which tried to give the world the car that ran on water.
Pakistanis have managed to do great work in a variety of highly demanding and technical fields but usually they do it when outside their homeland. The infrastructure and money required for quality education and research is simply unavailable here. There are only 10,670 PhDs in the country, a tiny number, especially when considering that according to HEC guidelines a university is required to have atleast two PhD faculty members in order to offer MPhil and MS programmes. In order for there to be innovation, educational institutions should have a culture promoting curiosity and critical thinking. Unfortunately, the current atmosphere only encourages the attainment of the highest grades through the retention of facts memorised from books. Questioning conventional wisdom and forming independent conclusions are not encouraged. The Ministry of Science and Technology now claims to have developed a strategy to reverse this trend. One can only hope that it will be implemented and the next Dr Mavalvala will not have to move abroad to make a scientific breakthrough.