Making use of grant

THE deepening of the economic crisis as a result of the fallout from the Sept 11 terrorist attack in the US has thrown the federal budget into disarray by adversely affecting revenue collection and exports. The grant of 1.2 billion dollars by the US and other donors has come as a badly needed relief. The US has already handed over 600 million dollars (Rs 40 billion) in cash to be used to off-set the threatened budget deficit. This has enabled the government to not only keep the development programme in tact but to upgrade it to give a boost to the economy and lesson the impact of the rise in joblessness.

A high-level meeting, held on Monday and presided over by President Musharraf, has given approval to the allocation of the US grant of Rs 40 billion to projects which formed part of the Annual Development Programmes (ADPs) of the provinces and the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) of the federal government. The PSDP will receive Rs 25 billion and the provinces will get Rs 15 billion, which will be distributed among the provinces according to the formula of the National Finance Commission — with the slight change that the NWFP will get five per cent and Balochistan 10 per cent extra. The money will be spent on projects which will improve housing, sanitation, water supply, conservation, education, and health facilities and create 1.5 million jobs.

The schemes falling within the purview of the Khushhal Pakistan Programme will get their allocation doubled from seven billion rupees to Rs 15 billion. The allocation in the education sector of the PSDP has been increased by two billion rupees, and the additional amount will be spent on the rehabilitation of 5,000 schools and on providing lunch to girl students of 5,000 primary schools in 20 selected districts. This is meant to induce increased school enrolment. The money for food will be given to the parents at the rate of six rupees per students per day. The scheme will run for one year unless the donors come forword to finance it further. A sum of Rs 600 million has been earmarked for the training of teachers.

As most of the ADP projects fall within the jurisdiction of the local governments, it has been correctly decided that the schemes will be selected, prioritized and implemented by them. The provincial government will do the coordination work and the federal government the monitoring. As a result of this arrangement, the district governments’ budget of Rs 14 billion is going to be doubled. The spending of the grant amount is intended to raise the delivery of basic facilities and, at the same time, reduce poverty through the creation of jobs at the grass-roots level. These two objectives, however, require long-term planning, resources and efforts, but the governments have been addressing them on an ad hoc basis depending upon foreign grants. This manner of dealing with the basic problems has the inherent possibility of a misuse of resources, and that is why it has not created even a dent in the poverty situation; it has rather worsened it. Poverty is a serious problem and needs to be addressed more seriously on a long-term basis. One hopes that the donors do realize this fact and that they would keep their interest in Pakistan alive and would not abandon it once the Afghan situation settles down.

Justice that isn’t blind

US Attorney General John Ashcroft has finally released the names of 93 people charged with crimes relating to the Sept 11 attacks. America’s chief law enforcement officer has also accounted for another 548 persons who remain in FBI custody but who have been charged with offences relatint not to terrorism but violations of immigration laws. Rather disturbingly, this group has 208 Pakistanis, the highest for any nationality. Asked by reporters why the government was continuing to withhold the names of those arrested, Ashcroft had said that this was done to protect their privacy and reputation. However, the next day he said the names were not being released because doing so would end up helping Osama bin Laden, since he would then know which of his associates was in custody. By this unsound reckoning, if a young male from a Muslim or Middle Eastern background overstays his visa then it would be fair game to assume that he is an associate of Osama bin Laden.

Ashcroft’s reasoning is as laughable as it is illogical. In the past week, he and his department have come under increasing domestic criticism. Most vocal have been Senators Patrick Leahy and Russell Feingold of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who have asked Aschroft to be more forthcoming in revealing the identities and exact nature of charges against those detained. In fact, a host of former FBI officials have also joined in, saying that such knee-jerk methods could in fact jeopardize effective investigations. Judging by recent developments, including a move to ‘interview’ over 5,000 men from Middle Eastern backgrounds resident in the US, one would have to say that racial and ethnic profiling seems to be the guiding principle in FBI investigations. By doing this, the US risks playing into the hands of the terrorists, who would be only too happy to see American society in turmoil. At the same time, since so many Pakistanis seem to have been detained, Islamabad needs to urgently take up this matter with Washington. In addition to that, the Pakistani-American community needs to realize that, like other ethnic groups, notably Jewish and Indian Americans, it must organize itself better as a lobbying group if it is to make its complaints and genuine grievances heard in the corridors of power.

Emergency in Nepal

NEPAL’S Maoist trouble now seems to be getting worse. On Monday, following Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba’s advice, King Gyanendra declared a state of national emergency after Maoist rebels killed 34 soldiers and policemen some 200 km northeast of the capital, Kathmandu. The current spate of violence ended a four-month old ceasefire between the Nepalese government and the Maoist guerillas, and is seen as a direct threat to Mr Deuba’s just as old government. The latter had marked the Maoist insurgency his top priority when he was elected prime minister in July after Mr Koirala, his Congress Party stalwart, was forced to resign amid charges of corruption and failure to rein in the insurgents. King Gyanendra, by readily acceding to the government’s request to impose emergency rule, has confirmed his known hardline stance towards the Maoist insurgents; the imposition of emergency now gives the government the power to launch military action against the rebels.

The Maoist guerillas have virtually controlled five of Nepal’s 75 districts in the northeast, west and south of the capital since 1996, where they have set up de facto local governments in defiance of Kathmandu’s writ. The Maoists declared a ‘people’s war’ on the government in 1996 after the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) abandoned parliament and was declared illegal. Claiming to have some two million active members in a nation of 24 million, the Maoists draw their support from Nepal’s impoverished hinterland across the country. A one hundred per cent homegrown breed, Maoist rebels have long demanded the abolition of monarchy, renunciation of unpopular treaties with India, land reforms, and an end to a culture of consumerist extravagance and moral decline in the world’s only Hindu kingdom. It is a pity that in a country where the united Marxist-Leninist parties constitute a formidable legal opposition in parliament, the Maoists should choose the radical path of revolution instead of working for their political goals in a democratic way. This coercive course of action is likely to compound the Nepalese people’s problems rather than solve them.