MANY in the country, specially the federal government, are visibly relieved that the financial assistance promised when Islamabad decided to cooperate with the international coalition against terrorism is materializing right now. Outright cash grants are the most welcomed where Islamabad does not have to repay the principal amount nor any interest on it. So far the government has been given $1.2 billion of such cash grants, half of which has come from the US.

However, sound judgment in economics would necessarily entail that Islamabad exercises caution in accepting any new loans. Even if the country’s debt burden were to be lightened by a debt reprofiling at the Paris Club meeting, the advantages accruing from this should not be nullified by taking on more loans now that might eventually bring the debt burden back to square one.

Islamabad’s ability to repay the loans depends on its ability to improve trade and industry to generate enough revenue to pay back these new loans as well the existing ones. The biggest new loan so far is the IMF’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) totalling $1.35 billion over three years. Then there is the $350 million loan from the Asian Development Bank for police, judicial and administrative reforms.

The question is, can the country afford to repay these loans or will the new loans eventually just be increasing our debt burden? Already in the current financial year 2001-2002, debt- servicing constitutes more than half of the gross revenue projection. Somebody in authority ought to be taking a serious look at how much more loans the country can actually afford to accept without getting the country into greater debt. In other words, repayment costs should be carefully calculated and weighed against the projected increase in revenue before deciding to take on the loan.

That this does not seem to be what is being done is disturbing news. Take, for instance, the $350 million Asian Development Bank loan. The MoU for the loan was accepted and signed recently by the federal government against the wishes and advice of the provincial governments. The latter had argued that they would not be able to repay the loan, 60 per cent of the value of which they would be entitled to access.

There can only be two reasons for the federal government to have gone for the loan despite resistance from the provinces. One, it is more optimistic about the provinces’ ability to repay the loan than the provinces themselves are. Two, it had considerations other than repayment costs in mind when it decided to go ahead with the loan. The latter seems more to be the case here.

This is a worrying development because it means that the federal government may not be practising sound economics. Good business sense entails that any entity envisaging taking a loan should calculate the projected profits over the period of repayment to ensure that the net earnings would more than enable it to repay the loan. It makes little economics sense to take on loans that it knows it will hardly be able to repay.

More loans also mean that the economy and the country will continue to be run under the dictates of the international lending agencies and foreign governments. This kind of bondage is hardly ever going to enable the country to develop independently and its people in general to prosper.

Another important point is that if trade holds the key to economic growth, and Islamabad has been asking for and has been promised greater access to foreign markets since Sept 11, what does the country have to offer for export? Apart from sports and surgical goods, the country is hardly producing anything in significant surplus for export, even in the case of rice and cotton.

As for manufactured goods, the country faces very stiff competition from nations within South Asia itself like Bangladesh, India and even Sri Lanka where the costs of production and labour are much cheaper. One major reason for the higher costs of production here is that the country’s utility prices are being dictated by the international lending agencies.

If Pakistan is to maximize benefit from greater access to foreign markets, it will definitely need to work at improving the quality of its products and making them more competitive cost- wise in the international market. The country will not be able to benefit from the greater market access granted to it if nobody wants to buy its products because they are more expensive and are of inferior quality.

One other important question is whether the money that the country is getting will be put to proper use or whether most of it will land in the pockets of some officials as has happened before. With all that money purportedly going into social sector development, including the $1.35 billion IMF Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility loan and another $350 million so far under the swap scheme (swap debt for social sector development), people would expect to see not only greater access to education and health facilities but also considerable improvement in the way that the education and health sectors are run and managed.

There is no point ensuring that schools are accessible to every child, that every school has computer facilities or that all teachers are trained in computers when the science laboratories are not functioning because there are no funds for them or when the teachers’ salaries are not only incompatible with the cost of living but irregularly paid out. Hundreds of government teachers in the Rawalpindi district have not been paid their salaries for several months now. Will the IMF’s PRGF loan ensure that schoolteachers will be paid regularly?

Similarly, there is little use in building more hospitals in the district and tehsil levels and the latest state-of-the-art equipment installed in these hospitals if the latter keep having their electricity and water supply cut off because they don’t have the funds to pay the bills or hospitals are perpetually in a rundown condition because there is no money for regular maintenance and upkeep.

Unless the government is able to considerably improve its revenue-generating capacity for funding efficient and proper day- to-day running of all social facilities and unless it puts a stop to the misuse of funds and ensures that whatever funds available is put into productive and proper use, the country and its people are unlikely to benefit at all from the foreign monetary assistance that is pouring in — with the exception perhaps of a few officials.

I THINK that the ICC umpire, Ian Robinson of Zimbabwe should thank his lucky stars that he was standing in a Test match that involved New Zealand and not South Africa. The New Zealanders did complain but at least they did not accuse Robinson of being in the pay of bookies as Ali Bacher had accused Javed Akhtar of such skullduggery.

Of course, Bacher did not have a shred of evidence but who cares about such details? Besides, Javed Akhtar was a Paki. Robinson may well have cost New Zealand the series, he gave Steve Waugh not out in Australia’s second innings, a caught behind which in the words of one of the commentators, “a snick that was heard by the entire crowd except the umpire.”

One appreciates that the replays available to the commentators are not available to the umpires and they get only one bite at the cherry. But surely a caught behind does not need technology, just reasonably good hearing.

The question is: has the umpiring improved with the introduction of technology? I feel it hasn’t made much difference, human errors continue to be made and even the third umpire is known to have got it wrong. I think we need to soldier on. The umpire’s job has always been a difficult one but with the availability of technology, additional pressure is now being put on the umpire and it must be a hell for him to know that seconds after he has given a decision, replays will be seen all over the world showing he has made a mistake.

But this is not the only pressure he has to deal with. Misbehaviour of players on the field is on the increase though this does not directly involve him except in regard to some show of dissent and excessive and aggressive appealing, which sometimes makes him give a wrong decision.

In the circumstances, the umpires do a pretty decent job. In the first Test match at Mohali, some verbals were exchanged between Andrew Flintoff and Saurav Ganguly and one had visions the match referee getting into the act but Steve Bucknor intervened like a school master sorting out two scrapping boys. He spoke to both of them and asked them to cool it. There was no further trouble in the entire match. This is what a good umpire is supposed to be — a father figure.

The contrast between the treatment handed out to Virender Sehwag and Brett Lee makes a revealing contrast. Sehwag had the book thrown at him by Mike Denness, while Lee got away with having a percentage of his match fee docked. Yet the offence of Lee seemed the greater for his gesture of sending off a New Zealand batsman he had dismissed was almost vulgar.

In any case, it was unbecoming of someone who was representing his country. It was watched by millions on television, not the best advertisement for Australian sportsmanship nor an example for young cricketers to emulate. I was surprised that both Steve Waugh and the Australian coach John Buchanan did not seem to find anything wrong and in fact praised Lee for his youthful exuberance.

But I can’t help imagine a Pakistani or Indian or Sri Lankan bowler getting off so lightly. And while on the subject of Lee, he too had been reported by the umpires for ‘chucking’ but nothing further was ever heard but the Shoaib Akhtar saga keeps going on. This goes beyond double standards. This seems to be a plan to keep the world’s fastest bowler out of international cricket.

Nothing has pleased me more than the return of form to Brian Lara. He seems hungry for runs once again. Who knows he may lead the revival of West Indies cricket? But I rather fear that the West Indies will need much more than Lara’s runs. They just don’t have the bowling even to get Zimbabwe out. It seems that the well has just dried out. No signs of another Courtney Walsh or Curtly Ambrose. On their present showing not one West Indian bowler would get even into the Bangladesh team.

As I write the second Test between India and England at Ahmedabad would have begun. I was in Ahmedabad in 1987 and cannot truthfully say that I have the fondest memories of that visit. The ground was miles from the city and we had to travel over a dusty road to get there. The less said about the hotel where we stayed the better. In fact, the brightest memory is of the red soil of the wicket.

Things may have changed. We too had been told that the wicket would take spin. It didn’t in the match-winning sense of the word. In fact it was a flat wicket and we would have played a timeless Test on it. England lost the first Test in the mind. I don’t think the England batsmen applied themselves. They had heard about Indian spinners operating in Indian conditions. I’m afraid they were victims of their own fears.

There is so much rubbish talked about the wickets in the subcontinent that the visiting teams put themselves needlessly under pressure. By now most tourists know that the Indian rope-trick is an optical illusion. Indians and Pakistanis have to make some adjustments to adapt to English conditions. Similarly, England need to adapt to Indian conditions. Otherwise, it’s the same game.

GENEVA talks, on the future of Afghanistan, were in the final phase when the Soviet Union announced its withdrawal from Afghanistan, apparently enabling the Mujahideen to form their own government to run the country. Moscow’s sudden decision to withdraw landed Islamabad in great trouble.

Ironically, the four-point Geneva talks did not include the formation of skeleton of interim government in Kabul after the Soviet withdrawal. This was ostensibly done to help materialize the US and Soviet plan for disintegration in Afghanistan.

This vacuum also owed to the oversight of Islamabad, under US pressure, with the intention to sideline the Mujahideen and enable Pakistan to control the formation of governments in Afghanistan. Moscow exploited this lacuna at Geneva and played the card of immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, thus landing the Mujahideen and Islamabad in trouble.

Although the Jamaat-i-Islami was not a part of IJI (Islami Jamhoori Ittehad) at that time, yet appreciating the importance of these developments I sought an appointment with Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif, the then prime minister, to share the Jamaat’s viewpoint on the future of Afghanistan. When I reached the PM’s secretariat, the (former) Afghan president Prof Burhanuddin Rabbani was either waiting for his turn to see Mian Sahib or had concluded his meeting with him.

It may be mentioned that Prof Rabbani, accompanied by his two pupils, had broken the police siege in Kabul and come to Pakistan in 1974. He had opted to seek refuge at my house, appreciating the fact that I had visited Kabul, despite all odds, during the Daud era and met the affiliates of the Islamic movement in Kabul University and other educational institutions in order to help them. I can vividly recall that Engineer Gulbadin Hekmatyar, Prof Burhanuddin Rabbani, Ustad Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf were in the same movement while Maulvi Mohammad Younas Khalis had close liaison with them.

At this important juncture of Afghan history, I had suggested to Nawaz Sharif to evolve a formula, in the first phase, between Hekmatyar-led Hizb-i-Islami and Rabbani-led Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistan. It was generally believed that discord in the ranks of Mujahideen ensued from the differences between these two leaders.

If these two leaders had endorsed some formula, it would have been easy to muster the support of other Mujahideen leaders for the formula. While, on the contrary, any discord between the two could have turned the situation volatile because they had the potential to play havoc with Afghanistan. Let it be clear once for all that I had made this suggestion keeping the ground realities in view and this had nothing to do with my likes and dislikes.

At the end of my meeting, Nawaz Sharif called an emergency meeting at the governor’s house in Peshawar and dashed to the provincial metropolis the same evening. Upon entering the governor’s house, it dawned on me that Mian Sahib had invited all the Afghan leaders, contrary to my suggestion of first having some basic formula between Prof Rabbani and Engr Hekmatyar. Mian Sahib would go out frequently in the midst of the meeting to consult the UN representative in Kabul. At one time, he sought the name of the proposed head of Afghanistan through balloting.

This showed that someone else was to decide the fate of Afghanistan. To me, Mian Sahib appeared to be unable to play any effective role because of his lack of knowledge about the issue. Nor was he capable of acting upon any sane piece of advice on this subject. At times, when Mian Sahib went to attend a telephone call from Kabul, I also skipped from the meeting.

After two days’ lull, a formula proposing periodic rule in Afghanistan was finalized. According to this, Prof Sibghatullah Mujaddedi was to head Afghanistan as president for three months. Prof Burhanuddin Rabbani was named to succeed him for the same period of time. Engr Hekmatyar was not taken into confidence about this. In his opinion, Hekmatyar had presumably won Kabul and, therefore, was not willing to take part in any parleys undermining his central position. It was evident that world powers did not want to see Hekmatyar and Rabbani united.

On the other hand, Prof Mujaddedi was unilaterally convinced that Ustad Rabbani and Hekmatyar both did not enjoy the mass support in Afghanistan. He always questioned their leadership and called them “artificially coined leaders” and believed that the real religious power in Afghanistan was that of Mujaddedi. He assured Nawaz Sharif and for that matter the world powers that once he was enthroned in Afghanistan, the entire country would rally round him to pay homage, kissing his hands etc.

Similarly, Prof Rabbani had established political links at home and abroad and paid special attention to becoming unequivocal leader of Afghan Tajiks. He nourished his links with the Persian-speaking Communist generals, in the last days of Soviet Union, to beef up his military strength inside Afghanistan. The late Ahmad Shah Masood was his strong ally but at the same time Masood maintained his independent identity. Prof Rabbani always depended militarily on Ahmed Shah Masood and his forces. While apparently agreeing to something, Prof Rabbani had, at the same time, a habit of making conditional statements that hampered the process of arriving at any consensus.

An accomplished Afghan leader and head of Harkat Inqilab-i-Islami, Maulvi Mohammad Nabi, had many times termed a reconciliation pact between Hekmatyar and Rabbani a panacea for all ills of the Afghan people. It was believed that their differences played a catalyst role in the formation of Harkat Inqilab-i- Islami as Maulvi Mohammad Nabi was appointed head of the unified Hizb-i-Islami and Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistan. Maulvi Younas Khalis had declined to be part of this integration and preferred to head his own faction of Hizb-i-Islami as a separate party. After one month the alliance disintegrated, giving birth to four independent parties. Likewise, the Sayyaf-led Afghan group, Ittehad-i-Islami, also came into being as a result of the disintegration of an alliance.

Efforts for alliance between the Afghan groups and the Mujahideen continued unhindered in the past. My Peshawar residence was the hub of such activities. Apparently, the efforts were directed towards cementing the ranks of Mujahideen but hidden hands remained active in sabotaging these efforts. People from various Arab countries and representatives of the respective countries’ intelligence agencies also attended these meetings under the garb of Ulema and Sheikhs. During one such meeting, I requested Prof Rabbani to make a categorical statement on any issue, but he failed to do that.

The government of Gen Zia was also not interested in integrating the Afghans under one leadership. Pakistan did not want to see the Afghan people deciding their fate independently.

The efforts to make Afghanistan a surrogate state of Pakistan strained our relations with Iran, besides annoying all Afghan factions. Ahmed Shah Masood and Prof Rabbani were critical of Pakistan’s alleged support to Hekmatyar. The same accusation was hurled at the JI although the party had striven hard to forge unity in the ranks of the Afghans without furthering the cause of any blue-eyed boy in Afghanistan.

Appreciating the ground realities and nature of Hekmatyar, I pointed out to Nawaz Sharif that by not taking Hekmatyar into confidence about the periodical rule formula in Kabul, Pakistan and other Afghan groups had sowed the seeds of chaos in Afghanistan. Later, when the in-fighting erupted among the Afghan groups, Nawaz Sharif publicly held me responsible for this fighting.

It is an open secret that no Afghan group or leader was ready to shun his bias and vested interest in dealing with the situation. It is a common experience of all those who dealt with the Afghans that they did not agree, even heed, to any formula that compromised their vested interests.

The current situation in Afghanistan is an outcome of the egocentric behaviour of the Afghan leaders and groups who destroyed the Afghan nation and the repute they had earned during their Jihad against the USSR because of such petty differences.

The dream of unification of the Afghan groups could have been materialized during the Zia era because Islamabad was serving as a main artery of provision of local resources and distribution of foreign aid to Afghanistan at that time. But the general and his aides suspected that if all Afghan people got united under one leadership, they would become master of their own destiny, which, in turn, could create trouble for Pakistan.

Now, the Afghans hate each other so bitterly that they are killing their own brethren with the ‘help’ of foreigners.

Before the Bonn agreement, President Gen Pervez Musharraf kept stressing the theme of Pakhtoon rule in Afghanistan. He did this at the behest of America so that the entire region remains unstable because of ethnic prejudices. This slogan would not benefit the Pakhtoons either.

A good government in Afghanistan cannot be formed through force. A long-lasting friendship with Afghanistan lies in respecting its independence and sovereignty. The Afghan crisis calls for all schools of thought to endorse a common national goal.

The writer is chief of Jamaat-i-Islami

REVENUE collection has been stopped since Nov 19 by patwaris of Dera Ghazi Khan tehsil in protest against the attitude of the executive district officer (Revenue).

A patwari was beaten up by a landlord during the revenue collection. He was manhandled reportedly when he asked the landlord to submit water rate in the tax return. The incident took place in the limits of Kot Mubarik police, and the case against the landlord could not be registered in time. Patwaris have boycotted revenue collection in protest.

The Anjuman-i-Patwarian president asked the EDO (Revenue) to take note of the incident, but to no avail. The patwaris have demanded registration of a case against the landlord, and asked the EDO (Revenue) to provide them security and legal cover during revenue collection. The demands have not been fulfilled and the strike continues.

According to the president of patwarian, revenue collection is the job of lamberdars and tehsildars, but the lamberdari system is ineffective in southern Punjab, particularly in DG Khan and Rajanpur districts. Most lamberdars do not collect revenue.

The feudal of the area also have lamberdari. For instance, Leghari Sardars are lamberdars of at least 40 mauzas, while Zulfiqar Ali Khosa was a lamberdar of at least 30 mauzas. Now he has given lamberdari to his cousin. But how can a Sardar collect revenue from door to door? Their representatives do not work properly. At least 20 lamberdars are active in Dera tehsil.

According to the Land Record Act Manual, a patwari cannot collect revenue like water rate and agriculture tax. If a patwari does so and one goes to court with evidence, that patwari can be terminated from service immediately.

The president of patwarian says they take the risk, but the authority concerned does not provide them security.

Due to these reasons, the district is facing difficulties to meet its revenue target. The previous balance was Rs41,957,408 while the present target is Rs28,264,184.