04.08.2013

Why quota matters
As the Federal Cabinet decides to extend the quota system for another twenty years, it must be understood that it has to be gradually phased out or reduced in its effect
By Ahmad Nazir Warraich

Pakistan is a majority constrained federation where all decisions have to be taken in the backdrop of a delicate and fragile union. The echoes of secessionist movements are always lurking in the distant background. This complicates any simple administrative question to be adjusted against multiple considerations, keeping in mind the ‘unequal’ and ‘mutually suspicious federating units’.

Matters are further complicated by the fact that like all ex-colonies, Pakistan inherited a strong civil and military bureaucracy, and for more than half of its life, it has been under military rule. The military is dominated by Punjabis and Pathans, and the bureaucracy by the Punjabis, Urdu speaking and Pathans. This has created a sense of deprivation amongst some of the ethnicities.

All this makes it important to find a way to address the genuine need of the minority provinces to participate and have a role in the governance of the country. Quota system seems to provide one such solution.

Before 1971, it was a question of creating parity between East and West Pakistan. Many of the government officers, hailing from the Muslim minority provinces of India had migrated to one part, thus tilting the balance in favour of West Pakistan. It was to correct this imbalance in the Federal Officers cadre that quota was introduced as an administrative measure in 1949. In the post 1971 era, it became an issue of maintaining proportional parity in the civil services between the provinces of Pakistan, where Punjab dominated.

Gradually, it became an integral part of the recruitment at all levels, to the extent that what started as an administrative order became a constitutional requirement. It was not just included in the 1973 Constitution, but was part of the 1956 and 1962 Constitutions.

The quota system is viewed as an alternative method of participation by the smaller provinces in the governance and policy formulation mechanisms.

Pakistan as a federation began its life with the units having varying degrees of economic, social and educational indicators in 1947. The initial disparity has been narrowed in various ways and to varying degrees, but is still there, and complicated further in the case of Sindh, by the disparity between the urban and rural Sindh. It is in this background that the quota system is in place. Inspite of Article 27 of the Constitution, which states, “No citizen otherwise qualified for appointment in the service of Pakistan shall be discriminated against in respect of any such appointment on the ground only of race, religion, caste, sex, residence of place of birth.” However, as all fundamental rights are generally not absolute, they always have derogation and exception clauses, in this case the exception is provided in the form of reserving quota so as, “to secure their adequate representation in the service of Pakistan”.

The legal argument in favour of this exception seems to be based on the concept of ‘reverse discrimination’. The dictionary definition of reverse discrimination is “the unfair treatment of members of majority groups resulting from preferential policies, as in college admissions or employment, intended to remedy earlier discrimination against minorities”. The quota was initially introduced for twenty years only, but was extended and is now set to expire next month. The Federal Cabinet has therefore a few days ago decided to extend it for another twenty years. This would require a constitutional amendment.

In addition to regional disparities, quota addresses under-representation based upon gender, minority and disability. To take an example the current quota with regard to CSS exam is; merit 7.5 per cent, Punjab (Including Islamabad) 50 per cent, Sindh 19 per cent, with the share of Sindh further sub-allocated in the urban and rural areas. KPK has 11.5 per cent, Balochistan 6 per cent, Northern Areas and Federally Administered Tribal Areas 4 per cent, whereas Azad Kashmir 2 per cent, and women’s reserved quota of 10%. Women quota is calculated from the share of each province/region.

Pakistan is a developing country where government continues to be both the main employer as well as a source of prestige and upward mobility. This is true for all government services, but is particularly true for the Central Superior Services. Federal, provincial and even local governments are controlled by federal officers which has been further strengthened by the recent changes in the local government law. In addition, policy formulation is essentially in the hands of the bureaucrats; it therefore is in some ways a replacement of the political representation process. This is another reason why quota matters so much.

If policy formulation and governance is through representative democracy, and bureaucracy is only the vehicle for carrying out those policies, smaller provinces may feel less the need to have representation in the federal services, and the federal services may instead come to be viewed as they ought to be, simply as good jobs, and nothing that should particularly matter to the provinces or ethnicities.

All administrative and policy measures require a cost-benefit analysis. Political compulsions aside, there is a reverse side to it as well. The first casualty of quota is merit. This has to have its effect on governance. One option is to peg promotion within service on performance and not treat it as a ‘right’, subject only to the number of years in service. Secondly, we need to assess the efficiency cost of this system, with a view to gradual phasing out of the same through policies that correct the regional imbalances, and thus eventually ensure efficiency in the working of the federation, through merit based selection. This can be done through continuing the political process, encouraging privatisation, as well as resuscitating the private sector.

Let us hope that in the next twenty years these things take place so that we don’t have to extend the quota further, and if it is still required, then quota could be phased out or gradually decreased. The government could for example increase open merit to 20 per cent as a first step and then take it to 50 per cent, so that there can be a balance between the need for merit, and ensuring representation to people from less developed regions.

Quota is a reality and political necessity for the immediate future, but it has to be gradually phased out, or at least reduced in its effect. Quota system is the need of the hour, however, it cannot go on forever. By definition it is meant to correct an imbalance; the government and the state must take measures to address the underlying issues. The issues are of institutional lop-sidedness in favour of bureaucracy and army, of economic development, so that the private sector thrives, and is capable of creating jobs, and the adjustment of the rights paradigm in such a way that the hard working and the bright need not look at government service as of major importance.

The writer is a Lahore based lawyer and political analyst

04.08.2013

Redefining strategic dialogue
Pakistan’s military and new civilian leadership seem united in chalking out new priorities of Pakistan’s relations with the US security establishment
By Syed Hussain Shaheed
Soherwordi

Pakistan-US strategic dialogue was the brainchild of President Barack Obama who wanted to keep Pakistan in closer contact with the US security establishment. It covers a wide-range of issues from Pakistan’s energy needs, its role during the war on terror to health and education sector woes.

The exchange of ideas was a part of American effort to annul fears that the US might repeat the mistake of the 1980s when it left Islamabad ‘high and dry’ after driving out Soviet troops from Afghanistan. It was also meant to remove the widely held perception that relations between the two countries were confined only to security matters. The process started in 2010 with its first meeting at the Capitol Hill in Washington DC.

The strategic dialogue is unique where we have both uniform military and top civilian officials in one room at the same time to discuss high and low politics between the two countries with their preferences. This undermines the notion that Pakistani civil and military policies towards the US are parallel to each other and do not intersect at any point. It can be substantiated from the fact that the Pakistan Army’s top leadership met with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif just before Secretary of State John Kerry’s arrival to chalk out new priorities of Pakistan’s relations as well as take a unified stance during the dialogue with the US.

On the other hand, Secretary John Kerry with a military background has been in official contact with the Pakistani civil and military leadership as former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since long. This makes a solid ground for a successful dialogue between the two countries.

The two historical allies in the Cold War and the war on terror, Pakistan and the United States have encountered many obstacles over the years. Until recently, the two countries had intimate interactions and numerous cooperative endeavours to counter Soviet expansion in the region during later half of the 20th century as well as to contain terrorism during the beginning of the 21st century. However, the relationship deteriorated dramatically over the past few years. Salala incident, Raymond Davis issue, May 2 Operation Geronimo when a US midnight raid in Abbottabad killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, strategic dialogue between the US and India, drone attacks and its civilian killings have indeed maligned relations between Pakistan and the US. Lack of dialogue on these issues, at various levels of government, and the current trust deficit has further fueled the fire.

First Pak-US strategic dialogue took place in Washington DC between the then top US Senator and today’s top US diplomat Secretary of State John Kerry and the then Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi along with Pakistan’s Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and ex-ISI chief Shuja Pasha. It was the first time that during a civilian government, the Pakistani Army and the ISI were participating in a dialogue with the United States.

Pakistan’s delegation submitted a 56-page wishlist with a few drastic demands: to acquire drones technology; help in overcoming Pakistan’s energy crisis; civilian nuclear arrangement on the patterns of Indo-US nuclear deal; and curtailing India’s growing role in Afghanistan.

However, with the Salala attack along with preceding irritants, the confidence was shaken badly. Therefore, the process of dialogue was completely broken and hence there was no chance of strategic dialogue taking place between the two countries. Pakistan and the US were showing negligibly little interest in resuming talks.

Finally, long awaited maiden visit of John Kerry as Secretary of State took place last week. He held consultations with the newly-elected government in Pakistan on various issues — eliminate terrorist safe-havens, ahead of the drawdown (and not the withdrawal) of US-led troops, from neighbouring Afghanistan; the drone strikes in the Pakistani border regions; promoting security; strengthening the Pakistani economy; reinforcing people-to-people ties between the two countries and establishing peace in Afghanistan.

The détente between Pakistan and Afghanistan seems part of the strategic negotiations. The new Nawaz Sharif leadership in Islamabad is very keen to develop positive relations with Afghanistan. Sharif stated that a united Afghanistan was in favour of Pakistan’s interests. His envoy and advisor, Sartaj Aziz, visited Afghanistan and had very conducive and conclusive talks with the Afghan administration.

The success of his visit can be gauged from the fact that the Afghan President, who was talking fire against Pakistan, at once agreed to visit Pakistan sooner in the forthcoming weeks. This reflects that the relationship between the two governments have substantially transformed and placed on more cooperative diplomacy.

Nawaz Sharif has moved on by giving clear priority to stability in Afghanistan. Instead of a confused policy, he accords equal weight to the success of Doha process. However, it’s a fact that the Afghan land has been used for subversive activities by Indian intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). RAW, with money and weapons, is supporting terrorist groups operating inside Pakistan via trans-Afghan border. Pakistan, of course, wants Americans, the de facto custodians of Afghanistan’s security, to check growing anti-Pakistan role of India in Afghanistan first and foremost.

Pakistan will continue pushing for better and preferable access of US corporations and financial institutions, American markets, and a preference based trade for its products in the US. This will have a two-pronged effect. First, the rise of Pakistan’s economy due to its massive preferential exports to the US markets will reduce the US foreign aid to Pakistan. Second, Pakistan will emerge as a regional economic power that will reduce militancy due to more employment, industrialisation and foreign investment. There is insufficient US economic interest in Pakistan, with American investment in Pakistan coming too slowly.

Pakistan is currently the 59th largest goods trading partner of the US with $5.8 billion in total (two way) goods trade during 2011. Goods exports totaled $2.0 billion while imports totaled $3.8 billion. The US goods trade deficit with Pakistan was $1.8 billion in 2011. Pakistan was the United States’ 62nd largest goods export market in 2011. This statistical data deserves attention of negotiators of the Strategic Dialogue. With political relations, the volume of the trade needs to be lifted for a durable and long lasting strategic partnership.

At the same time, it’s a fact that strategic relations between the United States and Pakistan have expanded considerably. The emergence of terrorism in shape of al-Qaeda and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) created a scene where national security interests of the two countries converge. Thus, they have important places to cooperate and past mistakes of each other to forget for a smooth sailing in future tactical relationship.

However, Pakistan’s tensions with India for its negative role in Afghanistan pose a challenge for US policy makers. The security situation in Afghanistan is another critical area for both the United States and Pakistan. India poses a major stumbling block in US-Pakistan relations. Pakistan considers India’s growing role in Afghanistan at the instigation of the US just to keep Pakistan on the edge of seat. India cannot support the United States to the extent that Pakistan can and hence Pakistan wants a substantial role in the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan. Neglecting Pakistan at the cost of India will not be in the strategic interest of the US.

In the light of the arguments put forth, following strategic thoughts may be forwarded to Secretary John Kerry for making the strategic dialogue a success:

1. Pakistan’s security interests are different from those of the US. It continues to face the problem of proxy war (sectarian clashes) and terrorism with its neighbours.

2. Since 9/11, the US has become a very important factor in Pakistan’s strategic thoughts in its national security. However, Pakistanis realise that the same degree of importance is lacking in the US strategic thinking. They feel that Americans are taking Pakistan’s sacrifices during the war on terror for granted which in fact frustrates Pakistan’s strategists.

3. The US realised the war on terror as a tool to curtail terrorism for its own national security. However, it does not give equal importance to Pakistan in the same context.

4. The US drone attacks are proving counter-productive due to their notorious number of civilian killings as a collateral damage. Pakistan has been demanding an end to US drone attacks targeting al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives, saying it has caused civilian causalities.

5. The US has not applied its own value system in its foreign policy. The invasion of Iraq would have had more legitimacy if it had had an international coalition behind it. Similarly, the Doha process of negotiations between the Taliban and the US would have had more meaningful results if it had participation of other stakeholders like the UN, Pakistan and other neighbouring countries of Afghanistan. Unless the United States is responsive to the concerns of other neighbouring countries, there will be no stability in Afghanistan.

This is the kind of strategic interaction that both Pakistan and the United States will need to keep working at. Candid exchange of ideas, diplomats and people is the key to ensuring that national differences of interests and perspectives do not lead back to the drifting apart that characterised the relationship between the two countries during the 1990s and between 2011-July 2013.

The author teaches International Relations, at the University of Peshawar

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

04.08.2013

After the Independence
“Pakistan: The Garrison State” creates a powerful narrative of the final stages of the Pakistan movement and the fascinating journey just after the Independence
By Helal Pasha

Dr Ishtiaq takes readers to a fascinating journey of Pakistan just before and immediately after Independence. He has created a powerful narrative of final stages of the Pakistan movement — its strengths, the weaknesses, and the issues faced and dealt by the Muslim League leadership. He pieced a succinct yet all-inclusive chronicle of events together that shaped the country.

The trajectory clearly demonstrates the ideological drift that kept gaining momentum until easily manipulated into a non-democratic thinking that now competes violently for space with democratic norms and disrupts peace in the neighbourhood. Dr Ishtiaq takes an objective look at the process that denied Pakistan its due share in military hardware (including airplanes) distribution per the partition plan. The attempted refusal of financial resource led to a suspicious Pakistan and eventually turned both the countries into hostile and non-trusting neighbours.

Distrust and hostility still persist. The hardliners within Pakistan civil and later military bureaucracy managed that to their benefit in following years. Indian politicians also never failed to take advantage of that when needed.

The war in Kashmir was a misadventure that had roots in Muslim League’s nonchalant approach to Kashmir before partition. Muslim League was ready to go to war after independence, yet before the partition, it was hoping to bargain Kashmir away for Hyderabad. The Nizam of Hyderabad was the primary donor of the Muslim League. The non-feasibility of Hyderabad joining Pakistan along with a growing pressure within Punjab forced Pakistan to seek an improbable support from British Generals and then mobilise the tribes to launch a campaign in Kashmir.

The Kashmir campaign, as Dr Ishtiaq has pointed out, led to first friction within the army and the removal of the ‘Young Turks’ conspiring to make some changes in Pakistan’s political structure. That also allowed an unimpeded ascendency of the West leaning officers in the Army and civil bureaucracy. The Kashmir saga helped built “an honourable strong man guided by religious principles who can take on ten opponents at one time and destroy them all” a simplistic yet, appealing persona of the Army officers and the conscripts.

Dr Ishtiaq has taken a look at Pakistan’s efforts in as he puts it “wooing the Americans”. Though this chapter contributes very little to the overall thrust of the study, still there was clearly a need to look at US-Pakistan relations in details. The US-Pak relations in succeeding years ensured that Pakistan army would be the preeminent political force in Pakistan. The ideological leanings of Pakistan’s founding fathers clearly set the tone, subsequently making it far easier for the Pakistan army to follow in the same direction as the true inheritors of the founding fathers.

Mr Jinnah, throughout his political career, was a conservative. He never contributed to any liberal thoughts; he was not adverse to colonialism. Muslim League from its very beginning was a conservative party and never changed its political ideology. Around the partition, Muslim League had moved to the far right position from a somewhat centric position in 1940.

In view of that, it was not surprising that Mr Jinnah and his colleague in Muslim League favoured better relations with the US and UK over the Soviet Union. Mr Jinnah had made his position clear by sending his confidant Mr Isphahani as ambassador to the US. He also made his policy clear in the cabinet meeting as quoted by Dr Ishtiaq.

In the presence of strong historical records, Dr Ishtiaq reliance on a Photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White seems anomalous. Comments in her book reviews included “would have benefitted from more knowledge, and greater objectivity” and “lack of background and biased interpretation” reflected poorly on her scholarship. Mr Jinnah never talked in conspiratorial tones as she implied.

Dr Ishtiaq then makes an observation that the United States remained uninterested, and the US policy of containment was focused on Europe. The published accounts of US strategy in Middle East in 1947, also known as “The Pentagon Talks 1947”, show a different picture. The US and UK from September to December 1947 reviewed their defense strategy for Middle East, Far East, and North Africa.

Declassified in the 90s and available at many libraries in universities, the report displays both the countries decided that excluding Turkey, Iran, and Greece, the UK would remain the primary driver of the policy in the Middle East. During these meetings, UK suggested “the British government entertains the hopes of arriving at a common defense agreement with the dominion of Pakistan as well as with India”. The emphasis was on Pakistan and its position with Afghanistan.

As Mr Jinnah sent his confidant to Washington, Mr Nehru sent a high profile ambassador, his sister, Mrs Pundit to Moscow. It turned out the Soviet Union was not keen on developing relations with both the countries. Mrs Pundit, in one of her dispatch, summarised the Soviet attitude after the first few weeks of her stay in Moscow: “The Soviet leader did not see any real substance in the completed transfer of power, and in spite of repeated pleas of the Indian ambassador for ‘most cordial relations’…this negative attitude was soon to culminate in shrill exposures of the ‘oppressive’ and ‘anti-national’ character of Nehru Government.”

First Nehru visit to Soviet Union was in 1955 after Pakistan had signed Baghdad pact.

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

11.08.2013

Education emergency in KP
Education for all, gender balance, better equipped educational institutions, new uniform curriculum and much more. Will the PTI be able to achieve its ambitious education goals?
By Tahir Ali

As per its commitment during elections, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has declared education emergency and planned various initiatives to improve education standard in the province.

The main focus of new projects is to ensure education for all, create a gender balance and fulfil the requirements of educational institutions regarding staff, equipment, furniture, teachers training and essential repairs. It also intends to devise a new uniform curriculum in the near future.

A working group comprising education experts, coalition partners and education administrators deliberated on the problems of education sector and prepared its elaborate recommendations for the sector.

The budget for both the elementary and secondary education (E&SE) and higher education has been increased to Rs29.7 billion against Rs22.12 billion in 2012 with the E&SE being the biggest beneficiary, accounting for Rs24 billion in the total ADP of Rs118 billion.

KP Chief Minister, Pervez Khan Khatak, says schools will be run by Management Councils comprising parents of students, local bodies’ members, elders of the localities, teachers and former students of schools. “It is a revolutionary step, first of its kind in the country. Teachers’ progress will be conditioned with the result of their students,” he adds.

A Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Education Commission is being formed with eminent education experts as its members who would work for uniform curriculum, transparent examination system and education for all.

For efficient and proper monitoring of schools and offices, a modern monitoring system is being developed comprising 500 impartial monitors with an expenditure of Rs500 million. It will also be supported by a third party monitoring system.

Female education administrative officers will get 50 per cent of their basic pay as incentive in six less developed districts for one year which will be made permanent if teachers’ attendance and performance improve.

Some other schemes include ‘Chief Minister’s Endowment Fund’ for sponsoring higher education of needy students and Iqra Education Promotion Scheme’ for poor children both of Rs500 million each; Expansion of Rokhana Pakhtunkhwa Public-Private-Partnership in Education Programme of Rs800 million; ‘Education Fund’ for establishing private school in areas having no public schools worth Rs500 million; the ‘Stori da Pakhtunkhwa’ initiative worth Rs360 million and increase in the number of beneficiaries from 10 to 20 position holders for all boards of intermediate and technical education.

The E&SE department has asked all the heads of schools to give their demands for staff, furniture, books, funds and other requirements immediately. These, according to an official, will be fulfilled before August 31st.

“The government has asked us to repair and whitewash all the rooms, lavatories and boundary walls around the schools. Water availability must be ensured. We were also asked to get telephone and internet connections and the government says IT teachers and labs will be provided in all schools,” according to a school principal.

Clusters:

“To improve standard of education in public sector schools, clusters have been formed wherein 6 primary and 2-3 middle schools will be given under the supervision of one principal or head master of a high or higher secondary school. The latter will be responsible for monitoring the attendance and working of teachers and will also serve as their salary drawing and disbursement officers,” he said.

“CM Khattak, in his first assembly address, had asked teachers to improve upon their performance or face the music. But education standard could hardly be improved in a situation where schools lack teachers, books, and labs. Also, the head masters/principals will have to be empowered to take appropriate action against the staff found negligent in duties. And political intervention will also have to be eradicated,” added the principal.

Management of a school requires strong commitment and sustained and fullest attention towards it on part of the principals. “We’ll have to monitor the schools, report to district education officers of any irregularity and ask the district accounts officer to issue/stop payment to teachers and other staff at the cluster schools which will consume a lot of our time. Monitoring of schools will take much time especially when there is no transport facility available. Those having no vehicle would either avoid or only nominally do the monitoring job. They should be given vehicles or sufficient travelling allowance. Then, principals and head masters should have vice-principal and assistant head masters at schools,” he said.

Curriculum change:

The PTI government also wishes to change the curriculum. KP E&SE Minister Atif Khan has given a tentative date of March 2014 to enforce uniform curriculum across the province.

The diverse curriculum taught in the public and private sectors and ‘religious’ madaris has divided the nation in water-tight compartments. To promote national cohesion, moderation and tolerance in our society, uniform curriculum is the need of the hour.

Curriculum change is, however, an arduous process that requires strong will and competence on part of executers, billions of rupees, lot of time and mutual consultations and spirit of compromise between coalition partners and stakeholders, political stability and support from the federal government. Will the PTI be able to successfully cope with these issues?

As KP is dependent on federal transfers and donor funding for implementation of its plans and projects, it will have to approach donor agencies like World Bank, USAID, Asian Development and UK’s DFID and the Agha Khan Foundation. Donor agencies are ready to finance the process but they want due representation in the working groups and the committees for the purpose. They would also attach some strings to their support.

The Jamat-e-Islami has been vocal in opposing heavy presence of donor agencies personnel in working groups and authoritative role for them in the process. It fears that giving too much leverage to the donor agencies would give them enough powers to exclude religious contents from syllabi which would be unacceptable. But beggars, after all, can’t be choosers.

While the JI presses for all-encompassing religious contents in curriculum, donor agencies may consider it an attempt to spread extremism.

Curriculum from first to intermediate level was changed by the previous ANP provincial government and the process was to complete in next academic year. The ANP had to face severe opposition from the JI, then in opposition but now a coalition partner in the PTI-led government.

There is still ambiguity whether or not seminaries and their boards and the private schools chains would be included in the process. And whether it’ll be done by banning private schools or by privatising public schools?

There will be opposition from certain quarters. “The elite class and their private education systems, the text book commission mafia and incompetent teachers would resist the move,” a professor said, adding that the government should implement the curriculum in stages.

Hitches

The PTI wishes to introduce uniform curriculum, increase state spending on education to five per cent of GDP, reduce the dropout rate at elementary level by offering incentives, encourage greater public-private partnership in qualitative improvement and quantitative expansion of education. But there are many hitches.

Ghost schools, teachers absenteeism, outdated teaching techniques, low admission and high dropout ratio, dilapidated school buildings with no facilities, outdated curriculum, flawed examination system, faulty monitoring system, indifference of teachers and administrators, overcrowded classrooms, weak supervision, mounting political interference and little attention and resources to developing teachers’ competencies, etc., are some of the main problems in the sector. Without removing these, any hope for improvement in the system will only be wishful thinking.

Teachers’ competencies should be the main focus as high quality teachers are the most important factor in a child’s education. With computer based learning tools, educational institutions can provide the supportive productive environment teachers need to reach, teach, and support each student’s learning needs and potential.

But the KP’s provincial assembly was informed last year that only around 300 high and higher secondary schools in KP had computer labs while around 2000 lacked computer labs and 4,500 computer teachers were needed.

While the government says it will achieve millennium development goals in the educations sector by the end of 2015, KP MDGs Report-2011 says they are unlikely to be achieved in KP by then. The net primary enrolment ratio in 2011-12 was 67 per cent and the Primary Completion Rate and Literacy Rate stands at 67 per cent and 50 per cent against the targets of 100 and 88 respectively.

There should be a mandatory uniform national curriculum from class one to twelve. At the intermediate level, all the students in the country should take a federal examination on the pattern of developed countries.

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

11.08.2013

Gadani’s breaking record
Gadani ship-breaking industry has immense potential to provide employment to thousands of people and cheap scrap for engineering industry
By Alauddin Masood

Using a little more than hand-tools, workers at Gadani ship-breaking yard scrap in a calendar year about 100 tankers and ship-liners — many thousand times bigger than their homes — into sheets, angles of metal pipes, machines or gadgets of various types, and thus become instrumental in contributing to the exchequer billion of rupees in taxes and revenues.

Toiling for $2 a day and working in filthy and dangerous conditions, these workers reclaim about a million tons of steel, fulfilling most of Pakistan’s metal demand for the construction sector, while some of them siphon oils left in ship tanks and pack it in steel barrels for sale in the domestic market.

Every morning, these workers swarm a 10-km stretch of sandy beach to do a job which is globally considered as one of the most hazardous work. Here men meet fatal accidents or suffer physical injuries, like fracturing of legs, tearing of muscles etcetera, but the work never stops. It takes, on an average, four months for a ship to be broken here against six months at bigger facilities in the region.

Once considered as the second top ship-breaking yard in the world after Taiwan, Gadani ship-breaking industry hit rock bottom due to official apathy post-1999. However, it has gradually recovered over the last 5-6 years, assuming the position of the third largest ship-breaking yard in the world as a result of prudent official polices and tireless efforts of other stakeholders.

In 1999, which was considered the best year for the ship-breaking sector in the recent past, Gadani ship-breaking industry contributed Rs3.54 billion to the national exchequer, which declined to Rs2.41 billion in 2002. During its hay days, Pakistan’s ship-breaking industry had at its Gadani docks about 40 to 50 obsolete ships at a time for breaking against one ship in 2005. High taxes and machinations of the vested interests, in particular iron/steel importers lobby, had contributed to the downfall of this once flourishing industry.

In the early 1980s, there was constant increase in the number of ships and vessels dismantled at Gadani and also their tonnage: In 1982-83, 156 vessels weighing 964,758 tons were brought to Gadani for dismantling; whereas the number of vessels and their tonnage stood at 146 vessels of 606,174 tons in 1984-85 and 165 vessels of 699,514 tons in 1985-86. Though the number of vessels demolished at Gadani beach increased the number of tankers decreased from 39 weighing 929,713 tons in 1982-83 to 12 weighing 92,259 tons in 1983-84, eight weighing 102,108 tons in 1984-85 and six weighing 76,023 tons in 1985-85.

This industry contributed Rs5.3 billion to the national exchequer in taxes in one financial year during the early 1980s. In addition to high quality steel, the dismantled ships also provided cheapest possible non-ferrous material, like copper, brass, aluminum, machinery, generators, boilers, wood and tools of international standard, for meeting the demand of the country’s industrial and commercial sectors.

In 1985-86, the ship-breaking industry helped the country in making an annual saving of Rs1,500 million, which would otherwise have been spent on the import of iron/steel. It also earned another Rs500 million in foreign exchange through the export of surplus ship-scrap, second hand machinery, generators, air-conditioners and other equipment. During that year, it also contributed to the national exchequer an amount of over Rs1,035 million in customs duty, sales tax and income-tax.

The ship-breaking industry paid Rs2.69 billion in customs duty alone during the period July 1982 to June 1986. Balochistan provincial government earned an annual income of Rs22 million through license fees and lease money during those times; while Gadani Town Committee annually earned over Rs30 million through Octroi duty, making it Pakistan’s richest local body, in terms of population-revenue ratio.

However, lack of state patronage and unfavourable tax regime gave deadly blows to this industry. India, Sri Lanka and Dubai benefitted the most from decline in Pakistan’s ship-breaking industry and consequently emerged as a regional hub of ship-breaking because, after decline of Pakistan’s ship-breaking industry, most of the foreign clients turned to them.

Some measures taken by the government in 2003, in particular cut in duties on import of ships for dismantling, kindled hopes of the revival of this industry as it re-started to attract entrepreneurs. But, the vested interests manoeuvred to get the duties on ships and vessels, which arrived in Pakistan for dismantling, doubled from five per cent to 10 per cent and sales tax increased from 15 per cent to 20 per cent, rendering the business non-viable once again.

After taking stock of the situation, the ECC decided, on January 18, 2005, to reduce the ‘deemed price’ of imported obsolete ships from US$ 400 per ton to US$ 300 per ton and ‘value addition factor’ (for determining sales tax) from 14 per cent to five per cent. These measures not only provided direct relief of about Rs1,350 per ton to the ship-breakers but also a much needed breather to the ship-breaking industry, thus saving it from collapse and thousands of its workers from the imminent danger of unemployment.

But, this still appears a far cry as Pakistan Ship Breakers Association (PSBA) believes that the working environment for this industry remains far from ideal and that the official apathy was impeding the development of ship-breaking, which is one of the biggest industries of Balochistan. The Gadani town lacks in health facilities and in case of emergencies the victim has to be rushed to Karachi. It is time that PSBA emulates Sialkot Chambers of Commerce and Industry and pools the resources of its members for catering to the needs of their industry on self-help basis.

Pakistan’s ship-breaking industry is spread along Balochistan’s Gadani beach, about 65 kilometres north-west of Karachi. Ship-breaking activity had started at Gadani much before Pakistan’s independence, but the ship-breaking industry registered a spectacular growth after the country’s independence, enabling it to gate-crash, in the mid-sixties, into the club of top ship-breakers of the world.

In the early 1980s, Pakistan’s ship-breaking industry was at its zenith. It provided employment to over 35,000 workers directly, while over 500,000 persons earned their living indirectly, through trade and such industries that used ship scrap as raw material.

How Gadani emerged as the world’s second top ship-breaking centre is an interesting story, which reminds one of the dedicated efforts, perseverance and imaginative thinking of businessmen, who initiated this work in an uninhabited region along the Makran coast.

Prior to Independence, some casual businessmen used to occasionally break a few obsolete ships at Gadani. After Pakistan’s independence, ship-breaking was taken up as a regular business after 1964, when a few vessels were brought to Gadani for breaking. At that time, no ancillary facility needed for an industry of this nature existed at Gadani, save its safe natural harbour and a shallow continental shelf. There was neither communication infrastructure (like roads and telephone) nor arrangements for electricity, drinking water, adequate accommodation for workers or medical facilities.

The place — a nomadic hinterland — was uninhabited and consequently there was an acute shortage of labour as well. Furthermore, majority of workers were uneducated, unskilled and migratory. Even the businessmen, who entered the trade, possessed little know-how of the industry, but they were infused with self-confidence and imagination and had realised that with the introduction of modern bulk carriers and the looming crisis in the international shipping industry, most of the outdated and obsolete vessels would soon become redundant. Besides, the process initiated by many countries for the replacement of their unserviceable WW-II vintage war ships with modern/sophisticated vessels, there appeared an international market, with London (UK) as its hub, for the sale of obsolete ships.

Being imaginative, this group of pioneer ship-breakers had also foreseen that there was definitely going to be an increase in the demand for iron/steel in Pakistan to cater to the needs of its rapidly developing re-rolling mills, engineering and other ancillary industries, which consumed iron, steel as well as other non-ferrous material.

The disruption of normal trade with India following 1965 and 1971 wars, discontinuity in supply of steel/iron products from Pakistan’s only steel mill at Chittagong after Bangladesh emergence and massive devaluation of rupee in 1972 made import of iron/steel products much costlier. This provided a good opportunity to the daring businessmen, who had ventured into the ship-breaking industry, to meet the national demand from the ship-scraps, which provided much cheaper raw material for the indigenous engineering industries.

Although the policy of nationalisation, adopted by the government in 1972, discouraged investment in fixed assets and capital goods, it gave a boost to the ship-breaking industry. Being labour-intensive, it needed neither fixed assets nor capital goods. Naturally, the more imaginative among the businessmen opted for ship-breaking industry.

These businessmen evolved innovative methods that were best suited to the conditions obtaining in Pakistan during those days. They engaged “contractors” to do the job of ship-breaking for them. The contractors also did not adopt modern techniques, nor did they use modern ship-breaking machinery. But, they did possess the knack of getting the job done to the satisfaction of their principals.

In 1978, realising the importance of ship-breaking industry, the Pakistan government announced a number of measures to give it a boost. These included: recognition of ship-breaking as industry, declaring Gadani as a port, reduction in customs duty on ships imported for breaking, provision of telephone connections, increasing the lease period from one year to five years; and appointment of an 8-member committee to solve its other problems. Now, an LNG plant has also been installed in Gadani to provide 20,000 tons of gas to this industry.

The years between 1969 and 1983 are considered to be the golden period of the ship-breaking industry in Pakistan. It was during this period that the ship-breaking activities witnessed a boom and this industry left many of its international rivals far behind as far as the total number of ships demolished and the tonnage of ship-scrap handled was concerned.

The ship-breaking industry has immense potential to provide gainful employment to thousands of persons and cheap scrap for use as raw material by the re-rolling mills and engineering industry. Protecting this industry from the machinations of iron/steel importers, providing it necessary facilities and encouraging the stakeholders to overhaul/update their machinery and infrastructure could revitalise Pakistan’s ship-breaking industry, once again. This would also help stabilise the market price of steel/iron bars, and ease pressure on the construction industry to some extent.

Alauddin Masood is a freelance columnist based at Islamabad. alauddinmasood@gmail.com

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

11.08.2013

Garbage is gold
Nargis Latif, the founding trustee of Gulbahao, has been exploring the potential of waste as a means of generating livelihoods and eradicating poverty
By Dr Noman Ahmed

Karachi is a city that is home to people with diverse interests and pursuits. From raw adventure seekers to serene Sufis, the list is endless. But it is difficult to find a waste management activist, if not impossible!

Nargis Latif, the founding trustee of ‘Gulbahao’ — a non-profit organization — is an outstanding mention. During the past 16 years of her most dedicated involvement, Nargis has contributed her untiring efforts in exploring the potential of waste as a means of generating livelihoods and eradicating poverty. With missionary zeal, she is committed to prove that municipal and other forms of solid waste is a resource and can drastically change and benefit the lives of small scale entrepreneurs.

Nargis studied in depth the waste generation, management and disposal in Karachi. She also interacted with various formal and informal stakeholders linked with commercial activities related to waste. Push cart vendors, scavengers, petty contractors, small scale entrepreneurs, agents and suppliers constituted this category.

Through this self-motivated field research, Nargis learned about the untapped economic promise of different types of refuse and rubbish. Her university degree helped her to delve deep into various issues of the subject and generate workable options with the assistance of various experts in the field.

About 100 staff now works for Gulbahao Trust. Nargis has been able to mobilise Rs80 million contributed by various philanthropists and businessmen. She has also exhausted her entire family savings into this noble public cause.

Some of her solutions were extraordinarily simple and easy to adapt for ordinary folks. ‘Cleanliness and Earning Bank’ is one such venture. Through a mass awareness campaign in various neighbourhoods, Nargis promoted the careful segregation of all such waste which possessed a value through re-use or recycling option.

House wives, young people and even elderly folks would bring vehicle loads of such material to her bank which was an open yard for collection. Her staff and volunteers listed, weighed and valued all such articles and opened a ‘waste account’. People were informed about the periodic balance on each deposit transaction. After the account would reach a certain value, she gave away gold coins worth the corresponding value. This extremely popular operation made her coin the slogan “garbage is gold”. Whereas the people had the option of simply receiving cash after depositing waste loads, most of them preferred the gold coin option due to its novelty and attraction.

This project of Gulbahao has been working since 1997. Gulbahao sold this garbage to larger waste procurement enterprises or recycling industries. For organic ingredients comprising kitchen waste, she introduced the option of compost which was also appreciated.

Housewives were encouraged to separate vegetable and fruit peels and trained to put them in a properly sized pit in the garden. With improvised steps of making compost, the housewives and gardeners were able to reduce the household expenses on gardening to a great extent. The growth and performance of plants and foliage correspondingly grew. I discovered many operators of plant nurseries prosper who bought the concept from Gulbahao and used it for their commercial benefits.

‘Silver House’ is another interesting innovation by Nargis and her team. The trust collects defected layers of aluminum foils from various industries. This foil is used to envelop the compressed blocks of waste material through pressing. The mode of construction can also be used with ordinary sand and dry trash. Different type of shelter structures can be developed with minimum skills and props.

Nargis and her team have trained many volunteers who became master trainers for others. During the devastating floods in Pakistan during 2010, Nargis was able to erect a 15 sq. meter room shelter in one day. Hundreds of such shelters were erected in relief camps to provide accommodation to affected population in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab through a massive volunteer operation.

In the wake of World Environment Day in June this year, many of the evidences of Gulbahao’s work were on display under the Rashid Minhas Road bridge precinct in Karachi. Thousands of keen observers came and appreciated her outstanding resolve towards improving the environment.

Pakistan continues to face grave fuel crises. Shortage of fuel is one soaring problem which affects households, businesses and industries. Gulbahao conducted a focused research around the potential of different types of factory wastes and by-products which could be used as alternative. And there came amazing responses.

Years of field research and interaction with stakeholders enabled Nargis and her team to generate ‘fuel pack’. This product is a block weighing about ten kilogrammes. It is composed to clean waste material generated from industries such as bits and shreds of wood, paper and cloth. A protective layer of aluminum foil is applied to maintain its quality before use. By applying compression, the waste material is pressed down in volume, making it effective. The fuel pack can be used in factories with boilers or thermal power chambers. It is also used by brick manufacturing kilns as a better substitute of natural gas or other expensive fuels.

Nargis and her team have spent months to collect the waste from about 80 factories in the industrial locations in Karachi. Her idea is ripe for commercial scale production. Independent estimates inform that it can replace at least ten per cent of conventional fuel. In other words, it has a net commercial potential of Rs 15 billion at the peak capacity.

Why Nargis and her work are important to be recognized? I have five arguments to offer. Waste management is usually considered as the duty of municipality alone, at least in Pakistan. Not much attention is given to the manner in which waste is disposed. The work of Gulbahao has given new dimensions to this approach. It tags waste as a valuable resource which needs to be treated as such. Two, Nargis has introduced a dimension of continuous research to discover doable solutions around waste. Some experts may not entirely agree with the populist style of her field work, but she has credible results to show. Three, her work has generated avenues of livelihoods and entrepreneurship. This can help eradicate poverty by generating employment, albeit at a modest scale. Four, being a women, she has broken the social barrier that the fairer sex cannot undertake tedious field work alongside men. And five, she has displayed unwavering faith in her mission despite hurdles, disappointments and limited response from the government.

The social, political and economic troubles faced by Pakistan has not dampened her spirits. We need many more visionaries like her!

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

11.08.2013

Unhealthy trends
A part of our ‘national fabric’, nepotism is fast replacing merit even in important professional areas
By Syed Mansoor Hussain

One of the more unfortunate facts of life in Pakistan’s medical institutions is the preferential treatment that children of ‘professors and principals’ of medical institutions get as students. A few years ago there were a series of ‘scandals’ in King Edward Medical College (KEMC), one of which even prompted a student strike when children of faculty members got ‘medals and distinctions’ that other students felt were not truly deserved. Though there are many faculty members that are above such shenanigans, over the last thirty odd years this has been a growing trend. And that in its own way is the story of the deterioration of the quality of medical education being provided in many of our public medical institutions.

I realise that favouritism is present in most educational institutions but it is perhaps more obvious in the medical environment, the reason being that children of doctors choose medicine as a profession with greater frequency than other professionals. As the only son of two doctors it was expected that I would become a doctor. Even as a child, my neighbours would call me ‘chotai’ (young) doctor sahib.

Over the five years I was associated with KEMC and then for a year as a house surgeon in Mayo Hospital, all the principals and many of the senior members of the teaching faculty of KE during that time had children that went through KEMC. Yet not one of them became the ‘best graduate’ and only one got a ‘distinction’ and he actually deserved it. He went on to do a PhD in the shortest time possible from a ‘premier’ US university and is now a full professor in a major US Medical School.

I still remember when I started my fourth year in KEMC, what was then called the final professional, one day I was driving with my father on the way to college, my father said to me, son this is going to be hard work and you better concentrate on your studies. So, I made a promise to him that he would not have to ask any of his friends and classmates from medical school, many of whom happened to by my professors and examiners to ‘take care of me’ as I went through my examinations. And I did that, as a matter of fact one of my professors and examiners had literally brought me up as a child, but I made sure that in his subject I would not be found wanting. During the oral examination (viva voce), he kept asking me questions until he ran out of questions to ask. Then he stopped and looked at me and said, Mansoor when do you get time to study? That was the ethos our generation lived by.

More importantly, any of our professors and principals of the college in those days would probably have disowned their children if they had dared to ask their fathers for ‘help’ during the examinations. And, yes I personally knew most of those students quite well since we the doctors’ children were a rather close knit community. And all of them would not have found the courage to ask their fathers for help either. Here I must admit that some of us did get unasked for ‘help’. In my case the most important ‘help’ I got during my final examination in surgery was because I was dressed properly (I still remember the tie I wore that day!) and spoke good English.

But what has changed? It is the brazen disregard for merit that has now become a part of our national behaviour. The thing that strikes me is that this is not a new problem. After all ‘taking care of your own’ is a longstanding tradition that spans all cultures. And no, it is not something that sprang out of ‘nowhere’ in Pakistan.

MA Jinnah in his famous August 11, 1947 speech, that is so often quoted when the question of religious tolerance is raised, also spent a significant part of his speech talking about corruption. Perhaps that part of his speech devoted to the problem of ‘nepotism’ is worth remembering. This is what he said: “Here again it is a legacy which has been passed on to us. Along with many other things, good and bad, has arrived this great evil, the evil of nepotism and jobbery. I want to make it quite clear that I shall never tolerate any kind of jobbery, nepotism or any influence directly or indirectly brought to bear upon me. Whenever I will find that such a practice is in vogue or is continuing anywhere, low or high, I shall certainly not countenance it”. Of course by ‘jobbery’ what he meant is what today we call ‘sifarish’.

So, even if we accept that a certain amount of ‘nepotism’ was always a part of our ‘national fabric’, the one thing that has changed is that even in important professional areas, nepotism is becoming more important than merit.

So let me present three possibilities. First an airline pilot that does not really know how to fly a plane well but gets the job through connections, such a pilot would never fly a plane because his own life will also be at stake. The second possibility is of a lawyer who is not too good at what he does. The worst he or she can do is lose the client, some money and possibly end the client up in jail. The third possibility is of a doctor that is not well educated and trained. Such a doctor can actually cause the death or serious disability of a patient under his or her care.

Is there a ‘saving grace’ in this entire situation? Yes there is and that is that almost every student that ends up in our public medical college is a ‘high achiever’ and has done well in school and pre-med before getting into medical college. Most of our medical students that qualify and end up as practicing physicians go on to learn stuff that they were not taught as students. There are exceptions but not too many and that is why even when our medical graduates go abroad they do quite well.

The main problem is that our medical education system does not do justice to the first rate students that enter our medical colleges. But by making nepotism as one of the major determinant of positions and awards as students and then as the primary criterion for providing the best training positions, we undermine the confidence of the ‘ordinary’ students in the system. And we also set a pattern where these students learn early on in their professional lives that to get ahead they will need to have ‘connections’ and that merit by itself will never be enough. If only we could provide good quality education to all our students, treat them according to merit and make sure that the graduates with the best performance go on to get the best training positions; we could in a matter of few years change the entire complexion of the medical profession.

The writer is former professor and Chairman Department of Cardiac Surgery, KEMU/Mayo Hospital, Lahore: smhmbbs70@yahoo.com

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

11.08.2013

A recipe for local government in Sindh
Considering Sindh’s prevalent ethnic and geographic schism, the new local government law should focus on effective service delivery
By Naseer Memon

Supreme Court’s firm orders have rekindled the hope for Local Government elections in the country. During previous five years stint of elected government, no party deemed it necessary to revive local bodies in the provinces under their rule. During recent years, Sindh has been oscillating between the local government law of 1979 and newly introduced Sindh People’s Local Government Act which was subsequently countermanded. The provincial government is mulling over a new law these days.

Considering Sindh’s prevalent ethnic and geographic schism and its uneven demographic composition, the new law should have inclusive characteristics to cement the widening cleavages along various fault lines. Previous SPLGA 2012 was more divisive that triggered a new wave of ethnic acrimony and an otherwise avoidable controversy in the province.

The new law should focus on effective service delivery and good governance for all citizens without any discrimination rather than courting any political or ethnic groups/allies. Karachi and other emerging cities of Sindh should get a fair and equitable treatment. Under SPLGA 2012, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation was accorded an exclusive domain in some of the subjects which disturbed the equilibrium of authority.

In the new law all districts should be given equal treatment in terms of authority and responsibility and mandate. Karachi has five administrative districts that should determine the configuration of Local Government structure for Karachi Metropolitan. The City government model of 2001 systematically deprived rural areas of Karachi from their due share in development resources and process. These rural areas are chronically impoverished and under developed.

Special status should be accorded to these rural areas by allocating dedicated development funds, certain urban based tax exemptions and a reserved share in jobs and admissions in academic institutions etc. For coordination purpose, an apex body in the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation should be established to manage inter-district development projects and other affairs.

Elected local government representatives should have authority to take decisions in their respective areas. Bureaucracy should not dominate the elected representatives. A balance of authority should be created. Balance and segregation of power between the two should be amply delineated and demarcated.

Subjects like security, police and land management should not be the exclusive prerogative of the Metropolitan/District Councils. Land, particularly in urban areas, is among the key sources of major conflicts, therefore, its management should rest with the provincial government. Similarly, the police have already been much politicised and has been grossly misused as a tool of control and oppression by the powers that be, therefore, it should be under the provincial government.

An independent Local Government Commission needs to be established under the chairpersonship of the chief minister to look after local government affairs. This high powered body should have the final authority to take appropriate decisions regarding any matters pertaining to local governments.

Women should have at least one-third reserved seats at all tiers of the local government. They should be elected through direct voting and not nominated/selected by the men on the elected councils. Additionally, women should be given party tickets to contest elections on general seats too. Similarly, religious and sectarian minorities, peasants and workers of the labour classes should have adequate representation at all tiers and they should also be elected through direct voting on reserved seats.

Allocation of development funds to the elected councils should be made through transparent, fair, rights-based and needs-based criteria. The moribund SPLGA 2012 introduced principles and indicators like fiscal capacity, fiscal effort and fiscal performance, which have inherent tilt in favour of the big cities where economic activity can generate surplus resources. Principles of provincial finance and budgeting should categorically mention indicators like poverty, gender gaps, geographic backwardness and development gap.

The Human Development Index empirically establishes these indicators. The existing structure of Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) may be reviewed and revised on the aforementioned indicators. Composition of the PFC should include independent and apolitical technocrats to ensure fair distribution of resources.

Under the rescinded SPLGA 2012, councils were allowed to set up any office or undertake any activity which is not decentralised through their own finances. Such provisions can be deleterious in two ways. One; it will benefit only big cities where surplus resources can be generated through additional levies. Second; flexibility of provision for “any office” will allow establishing potentially objectionable offices e.g. armed militia under the garb of local security initiatives. Exploiting this lacuna, powerful vested groups can create their own loyal force on tax payers’ resources.

Sindh is a disaster prone area and during the past three years, the province has witnessed a series of devastating catastrophes. The new law should empower and charge the local governments to develop and execute disaster risk reduction and disaster management plans under the technical guidance and supervision of Provincial Disaster Management Authority.

The right to information is a key to empower citizens and ensure transparency and good governance. Sindh can take a progressive step by introducing right to information clause in the new local government law. Citizens should be given access to information on development planning, budgeting, expenditure, engendering, meeting minutes and other matters of governance at the district level and at the lower tiers.

The new local government law should make a provision for grievance redressal/complaint management mechanism enabling citizens to hold their elected councils accountable to them. This mandate can be given to the aforementioned Local Government Commission. However, access for every citizen should be made convenient through an institutional mechanism. District Ombudsman can be an option with appropriate powers to make local government departments accountable and efficient.

No Metropolitan or District Council should be exempted from accountability mechanism. In the past, a political group managed to evade audits of local government fund in their areas of influence. Local governments should be subject to accountability and transparency under the constitutional and legal framework of the province. District Public Accounts Committee should also be introduced to create a check and balance with a council member of the opposition of repute as its head.

Local governments should be made responsible to issue an annual performance report to the provincial government and also through the mass media. Such public disclosures should also be in the local languages to ensure wider outreach.

An announcement to hold local government elections on party basis is a welcome decision. In order to ensure and promote democratic culture at the grassroots level and to make them directly responsible to people; District, Taulka and Town/Municipal Committee Chairpersons should be elected through direct voting under adult franchises system.

Appointments for the district level bureaucrats of grade-17 and above should be made mandatory for three years unless serious allegations and complaints are established through a committee of elected council members, both from treasury and opposition benches.

A representative and empowered district planning and development committee should be included in the new local government regime with a mandate to plan and monitor demand driven development schemes. The committee should include both men and women members both from treasury and opposition benches and ex-officio officers.

With an objective to make districts and Talukas financially sustainable, appropriate powers to impose taxes and duties at the district level may be ensured to district councils.

nmemon2004@yahoo.com

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

11.08.2013

Jirga justice
If informal Jirga is converted into a state-supported institution, it would likely become as ineffective and defamed as other state institutions are
By Prof Dr Muhammad Taieb

As the provincial government intends to empower informal Jirga in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), therefore, the following lines are an attempt to highlight the local perspective and the complications likely to arise out of the decision? In the Fata, Jirga functions as a formal state supported institution. However, in other areas of KP, the Jirga is an informal system of conflict resolution.

Principally, KP is a modern state society but practically it hasn’t attained the characteristic features required for a modern state society. It’s still going through the stage of tribal society. The purpose of this discussion is to address the role of informal Jirga in conflict resolution in areas of KP other than Fata.

Informal system for conflict resolution which exists in Pakhtun society is Jirga and Sharia. Jirga is an egalitarian body of influential persons plus other individuals who are known for their skills in negotiation and reconciliation to come together for consultation and find out a solution to a given problem. The influential and neutral local people comprising the Jirga are normally known to all in the area for their honesty, decency, generosity, and piousness.

The basic purpose of the Jirga is to discuss the issue so as to reach a solution to a problem. Jirga is normally organised to plan an activity, to chalk out the strategy of offence and defense against enemy. The purpose of debates at Jirga is to explore the possibilities of agreement and arrive at compromises. The mediation process takes place in community places such as hujra (men house) or jumaat (mosque) and in a manner open to public.

Sharia means to resolve disputes in the light of Islamic Jurisprudence. To opt for sharia is subject to the willingness of the disputants. When disputants agree to resolve the conflict by sharia laws, the case is submitted to a sharia expert for arbitration. The expert is selected on the mutual consensus of the parties. Jirga also plays an important role in the selection of sharia expert, venue, time and date. The sharia expert discusses the case in the presence of eye witnesses. A decision made is brought in writing duly singed by the sharia expert(s), witnesses as well as the disputants. Consensus between parties beforehand over the mode of arbitration itself reflects the binding nature of decisions made by the arbitrators. Informal system of conflict resolution functions in the presence of formal state system.

Formal state system is controlled by formal courts and executives. They are generally responsible to administer official justice system in KP (Pakistan). According to peoples’ perceptions there are different causes of the inefficacy of the formal justice system which include the nature of the law that govern the official justice system and which was imposed by the British Colonial government. Other causes are related to corruption among those running the system. Therefore, justice is accessible only to the influential and those who can pay to buy justice.

As reported by Transparency International (TI) “the other sector in Pakistan which is seen as notoriously inefficient and corrupt is the judiciary. According to TI Pakistan’s 2006 survey, 96 per cent of the people who came in contact with the judiciary encountered corruption and 44 per cent of them reported having to pay a bribe to a court official.”

The decisions made by the formal system are not consensual, hence, are not fit to the psyche of the disputants. Therefore, the decisions of the formal courts are not durable to resolve conflicts permanently. The people then precisely look for an alternative system that should deliver justice in a transparent manner. The alternative system is traditional one which the disputants psychologically own because of their participation in the process and also because it ensures autonomy and shows respect to their social status and glory.

Pakhtuns believe in social equality but the formal laws are not found consistent with the tradition of social equality because in a given dispute formal court, on the basis of evidences, emphatically declare one party as a winner and another as a loser and it did not leave space for collaborative or integrative solution to the problem. Hence, the formal system of conflict resolution needs to be looked in this perspective where one litigant is declared winner and the other as loser.

Traditional system will only break down if state institutions deliver more effectively than a traditional system. But formal court does not operate in cultural framework and studies a case in isolation and does not involve disputants while formulating a judgmental decision. Hence, this nonconformity of people to formal legal system was never resolved and formal justice system has never achieved a level truly reflecting people’s satisfaction.

If we look at the proverbial saying of “the rule of law”, it is inappropriate because there is no rule of law given by the state since the law giver needs to fulfill other prerequisites that make the citizens law abiding. It is because the state institutions do not perform to the satisfaction of people, hence, the weaker role of the state forces the people to look for alternative mechanism.

Hence, instead of relying on the government, people feel secure to get organised on the basis of consanguinity. Murder cases, a prime responsibility of the modern state to resolve, are also negotiated through informal system which depicts no confidence of people in the process and procedure of formal courts. Therefore, people abide by the decision of Jirga and verdict of Sharia which ensures their socio-psychological needs as well as security which they administer themselves.

The efficacy of traditional system is rooted in cultural values because it works in a manner to satisfy the disputants in cultural context emphasising social equality, autonomy and participation.

Formal legal system is fully operational in KP. In case it works and delivers properly, people would need no additional supportive institution like informal Jirga? However, if informal Jirga is converted into a state-supported institution, it would lose its present effectiveness because state supported Jirga would likely become as ineffective and defamed as other state institutions are.

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)

11.08.2013

Light at the end of the tubewell
Farmers in Nankana benefit from a solar tubewell initiative, while others wait for the government’s plans to mature
By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed

Maratab Ali is a progressive farmer in Ahmadwala village in district Nankana Sahib, which is hardly an hour’s drive from Lahore. The village is a sheer victim of excessive electricity loadshedding and its inhabitants live without it for 18 to 20 hours a day. There is no schedule at all for power failures.

The inhabitants of this village are mostly associated with agriculture. They grow cash crops, seasonal crops, fruits, vegetables and so on. As the village lies close to the Grand Trunk (GT) Road and big districts such as Gujranwala and Lahore, its produce has a ready market and it fetches good prices.

This increases the load on farmers, and the fields which have to be tilled repeatedly throughout the year. This is not easy for them in the absence of electricity required to run tubewells. They have to pump out water with the help of tubewells. The canal water is there but it is too scarce and available to farmers in very limited quantities.

Another option is to operate tubewells with diesel-run engines. This is totally non-viable for farmers as the use of imported fossil fuel raises the cost of production alarmingly, and makes their product too expensive.

So, in this situation, one wonders what the farmers shall do to survive or shall they look out for some other livelihood. Farmers of the village formed a community organisation and contributed some money to benefit from a donor-funded solar tubewell installation programme. Today water flows into the fields throughout the day, and above all there are no maintenance costs and exorbitant electricity bills like there were in the past, says Maratab who heads the body.

The total cost of the solar tubewell was Rs16,45,000. The farmers contributed Rs329,000 and the remaining Rs13,16,000 came from the Rural Community Development Society (RCDS) — a Punjab-based non-governmental development organisation. The solar tubewell benefits 40 households and irrigates around 70 acres of land. The per hour discharge of the tubewell is 60,000 liter and it irrigates three to four acres of land in a day with the help of 4-inch wide delivery pipe.

The farmers had to pay a share of Rs4,700 per acre share and the contribution amount per household depended on the size of the land they owned. For example, a family with landholding of four acres paid Rs18,800.

The RCDS got the required funds from Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) which channelises World Bank’s anti-poverty grants through reliable partners at the local level, says Muhammad Murtaza Khokhar, Executive Director RCDS, while talking to TNS. He says they have so far installed four tubewells in different parts of the province, whereas PPAF has provided 49 solar water pumping solutions throughout the country with the help of its partner organisations. In total, these projects have directly benefited 2,582 households and 17,968 individuals.

Murtaza adds the demand for solar tubewells is too high for non-government organisations to fulfill. They can do pilot projects to create awareness and show working examples to farmers, government departments and other stakeholders. The RCDS programme exclusively covers small farmers and releases funds only when organisations are formed at village level. Large-scale farmers and individual applicants are not eligible to benefit from this initiative.

Explaining the whole concept, he says his organisation chalks out village development programmes in the areas where it operates, and reaches out to people through social mobilisers to find out which solutions could help them reduce their poverty. In the case of Ahmadwala, it was observed these people were having difficulty in earning their livelihood — through agriculture — due to non-availability of electricity to run tubewells. “So, they got the solution they needed the most.”

Now the people are enjoying the benefits of solar pumps. Per day benefits to farmers is Rs1,500 to Rs2,000 and they have started sowing vegetables and planting guava orchards. The Village Organisation even has Rs70,000 in its account.

“Farmers were asked to contribute to the cost, just to create a sense of ownership of the project among them. They get water on their turn and each one of them guards the facility at night on different days,” Murtaza observes

Agricultural experts believe this kind of participatory farming is instrumental in publicising the benefits of this expensive technology and making it accessible to small and average-sized farmers. There are working models in many parts of the world where farmers’ contributions comes in the form of work hours they put into setting up facilities and even in kind. They may bring sand, mud and other construction material as contribution from their side.

Muhammad Ramzan, a solar power solution provider based in Lahore, thinks banks, especially those dealing in agricultural credit, must extend cooperation in this regard. No doubt donors and the government are working on this technology but they only support small scale farmers. “Why don’t the banks facilitate established farmers wanting to install solar tubewells?”

Ramzan says the prices are fast coming down with the arrival of more and more suppliers in the market. These service providers should make arrangements with financial institutions for this purpose. “Paying back these loans would not be a big problem as farmers would save a lot on electricity bills. These savings can also go into settlement of loan amounts,” he adds.

The solution is also highly suitable as different companies give at least 10-year guarantee at the time of their sales. Project components of a solar tubewell are solar panels, submersible pump, inverter, wires and foundations for the solar plates.

The farmers who are not covered under such programmes are looking for the government’s intervention. In case of Punjab, the provincial government has announced that it will give 80 per cent subsidy on solar tubewells to farmers, whose landholdings are less than 12.5 acres in size. They hope the plan undergoes execution within the stipulated timeframe, and does not suffer from delays typical of ambitious government programmes.

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"Nay! man is evidence against himself. Though he puts forth his excuses." Holy Qur'an (75:14-15)