THE two routes taken to the Monterrey conference by those who give aid and those who receive it traversed very different territory. A number of aid givers had reached the conclusion that what really matters are government policies that support development in many different ways.

According to this view aid plays only a marginal role. In fact, in the countries with weak institutions and weak legal systems, aid may corrupt the officialdom. The primary emphasis, therefore, has to be institutional development and improvement in the quality of governance. Without it, aid can be counterproductive. As two development experts put in a recent contribution to Financial Times, “aid all too often fattens bloated bureaucracies or enriches corrupt autocrats — and has played no small part in creating the economic and political chaos in which fanaticism flourishes and totalitarians win adherents.”

The aid receivers take an entirely different view. They maintain that most of them are so poor that they cannot adopt the policies that would support sustainable development unless some room for manoeuvre was created by large flows of aid. They were looking for fiscal space within which they could operate. Which of these two points of view is correct?

As is so often the case in economies, the truth lies somewhere in between. The evidence for both positions on aid can be gleamed from the data and information available in the various studies carried out by the World Bank, by far the largest development agency in the world. The data on global poverty can be used to argue in favour of both propositions. As I indicated in the article last week, it is possible to suggest that roughly $1 trillion of aid provided to the developing world since World War II has accomplished little.

One half of the world’s population still lives in poverty, earning less than $2 a day per head. One third of the world population lives in abject poverty with per capita income of less than $1 a day. Some development aid agencies which audit their projects admit to significant failures. The World Bank’s own evaluation department suggests that barely half of its lending operations of the past decade are likely to produce sustainable benefits. Asian Development Bank’s internal audits show that fewer than one-third of the projects it has financed in recent years are likely to provide lasting social or economic benefits.

The same numbers can be told in a different way — the glass is not half empty; in fact, it is half full. Since 1980, the number of people living on less than $1 a day has declined by 200 million. This happened while the world’s population increased by 1.6 billion. As one commentator put it in the press coverage that preceded the Monterrey conference: “That is a stunning achievement given that the rank of the poor previously had swollen steadily at least since 1820.”

Not only have the number of poor declined but there has been a significant improvement in the well-being of the poorer segments of the population. The adult illiteracy in the poor world has been reduced by one-half during the past three decades and life expectancy at birth for the people living in the world’s poor countries has increased by 20 years over the past four decades. “Again a stunning achievement,” according to the observer quoted above. The previous 20-year jump in longevity had taken a much longer period — it occurred in the period between the Stone Age and the middle of the 20th century.

In other words, although there are still a very large number of poor people in today’s word, the proportion of the world population living in poverty has declined steadily in the last several decades. Although the income gap between the rich and poor countries has been widening, that has happened not because per capita incomes in poor countries have not increased.

The gap has increased because incomes in the rich countries have increased faster since their populations are not growing. What was added to their gross domestic product was distributed among the same number of people — in some cases even fewer people. In the developing world, on the other hand, population growth consumed a significant part of the increase in economic output. Since fertility rates in developing countries have begun to decline, one important reason for the widening of the gap between the rich and poor countries should become less significant.

These global numbers do not, of course, provide a robust argument for more aid. In fact, as a recent World Bank study on the effectiveness of aid suggests, much of the global improvement in living conditions occurred in the countries that did not receive much government to government assistance. China — and more recently India — with a combined population of more than 2 billion people have done well for their poor people. The improvements in living conditions in both countries have made enormous contributions to the improvements in literacy and health in the developing world.

Much of what China and India accomplished by way of poverty alleviation was the consequence of good government policies and not because of large amounts of foreign aid. Aid flows to these countries were only a fraction of those received by scores of smaller countries in Asia and Africa. If we take out China and India from our calculations, the claim on behalf of aid based on a significant improvement in the lives of people becomes weaker.

To further strengthen its argument, the pro-aid lobby has come out with another set of numbers, once again relying on the copious work done by agencies such as the World Bank. The World Bank maintains that aid has a direct and visible impact on poverty not camouflaged by global statistics. It has calculated that $1 billion in extra aid lifts more than 250,000 people above the $1-a-day poverty line.

It is not only government-to-government aid that works well for the poor; government to the private sector aid also produces very positive results. The International Finance Corporation, World Bank’s private sector affiliate which lends to businesses in the developing world, estimates that the median project in its portfolio between 1998 and 2000 earned a post tax return on capital of 10 per cent a year. This is a better rate of return than that provided by many multinational companies. At Alcoa, a company once headed by Paul O’Neill, the US Treasury Secretary who has been critical of aid, the post-tax return on capital averaged 9.6 per cent a year during the 1990s.

Those who suggest that capital flows from the world’s financial markets do a better job of helping developing countries, must contend with both old and recent history. Capital markets don’t invest in health and education in the developing world. Economic historians maintain that Britain’s 19th century economic take-off would not have happened without public sector’s investment in sanitation. It took a great deal of money provided by the government to clean up London’s sewerage and water supply systems. History offers several other examples. For instance, it was the massive investment by the government in health and education that laid the basis for China’s spectacular growth in the last quarter century.

It is now well recognized that public investment plays an important role in human and social development. As the United Nations’ background document for the Monterrey conference pointed out, “the primary resource for development is the great untapped reservoir of human creativity and talent of the people of the developing countries themselves; the release of this human potential requires investment in education, infrastructure, public health and other basic social services, as well as in production for the market.” But how is this untapped human resource to be prepared and motivated to participate in the important but often difficult task of sustained and sustainable development? This effort requires resources — a great deal of them. From where will they come?

As the participants in the Monterrey conference finally recognized, good policies in poor countries cannot substitute for foreign capital flows. Aid is important to break the vicious cycle of poverty. It is a great irony of modern times that aid stagnated precisely at a time when two developments of great significance occurred. One, there was a broad consensus reached among development thinkers and practitioners about the sources of growth and how the rewards of growth could be used to benefit the poor. Two, a very large number of developing countries undertook significant reforms in economic, political and social governance. In spite of these propitious developments, ODA flows stagnated. They stagnated not because the world was short of savings but there was an absence of political will.

As an analyst who specializes in development puts it: “It must be acknowledged that political support for foreign aid is very weak in the United States and other rich countries. Why does rock singer Bono figure so prominently in the debate on world poverty, HIV/Aids and debt relief? Because, as he said after George W. Bush invited him to the Oval Office, ‘I am a pest, I am a stone in the shoe of a lot of people living here in this town.’ Bono’s celebrity enables him to make politically visible what would otherwise be almost invisible to American leaders.” The Monterrey conference was convened to do globally what Bono accomplished in the White House — to convince the leaders of the world’s richest countries that a small part of global savings had to be directed towards poor countries.

In 2000, countries around the world saved and invested $7.5 trillion out of global output of over $30 trillion. The global savings rate was of the order of 25 per cent of total product. The problem, however, was that this amount of money was not evenly distributed, let alone distributed in favour of the developing world. The net transfer of resources from capital surplus (generally the developed world) to the capital-importing (generally the developing world) was of the order of $450 billion. However, three-fourths of this amount was captured by the United States, by far the world’s largest economy.

Much of the cross-border capital flows emanate from private sources and most of these flows are among the countries of the developed world. Of the amounts that flow to the developing world, the bulk is directed towards a dozen or so countries, most of them in East Asia and Eastern Europe.

Money attracts money. A significant proportion of the capital flowing into the developing world goes to the countries that have high domestic savings rates. It is a combination of high rates of domestic savings and capital inflows that produced the East Asian miracle of the seventies and the eighties. The conclusion from all this is fairly clear. For a large number of poor developing countries there is no substitute for official development assistance if the world wishes to see them progress and alleviate poverty.

THE new alignment of regional and international political forces in South Asia calls for both India and Pakistan to reconstruct their respective security paradigms vis-a-vis each other. In other words, both the states must agree to approach the Kashmir dispute innovatively, each leaving its current stance for another feasible one.

Pakistan’s stance on Kashmir may well be a legitimate one in historical, political, ethical and legal terms, the persistent mishandling and obsession with the issue has become counterproductive for the Pakistani state and society. It has led to a domineering emphasis on defence build-up, at the expense of the country’s social and economic development.

In the decade since Pakistan exploded the nuclear device, the percentage of its population below the line of poverty has risen from 17.3% to 32.6%. In Asia Pakistan’s literacy rate stands higher only to that of Nepal and Bangladesh. The literacy gap in gender terms puts Pakistan lowest on the list. Only 29% of its adult women are literate. Development spending in Pakistan’s budget fell from 28% in 1991 to 15% in 1999 (while defence spending rose).

Pakistan’s geostrategic rent collection capacity has risen in the aftermath of September 11, offering it short term relief. This relief, however, should not obfuscate the graver political situation Pakistan has been placed in. Its security is further jeopardized on both its western and eastern fronts.

The new situation leaves Pakistan with many unanswered questions. How will Pakistan deal with a resurgent Northern Alliance hostile to itself and supported by India, Iran and Russia? What will happen to the civil-military relations if the BJP government continues with its policy of making hawkish demands on the Musharraf government. In the face of heightened security threats, how will Pakistan spend its aid dollars? While demolishing the jihadi Madressas, will it be able to spend its capital on cultivating a viable educational alternative for its youth. It was, above all, Pakistan’s failed school system that is responsible for the rise of Madressa culture. If a viable alternative is not consolidated, the jihadis will not atrophy, they will simply go underground.

Similarly, India’s rigidity over the Kashmir issue has given rise to negative socio-political currents within its own polity. It has contributed to steady polarization between the Hindus and the Muslims in India. It has strengthened the forces of majority religious chauvinism and minority religious anxiety in a country whose very conceptual base is heterogeneity and secularism.

The matter does not stop at the level of society either. The very “nature” of the Indian state is getting warped. The BJP’s sponsorship of the draconian law of POTO (prevention of terrorism ordinance) has scandalized the world and enraged the Indian national and expatriate intelligentsia. Modelled after the anti-terrorism laws of the UK and the US, India goes further. While the citizens of the former two countries are exempt from such laws, POTO is meant for the Indian citizenry.

If an economically resurgent India is to unleash Hindu resurgence under the auspices of a police state in its wake, it will be like a nation shooting itself in the foot. Intense animosity with a Muslim state next door and harbouring the largest minority population of Muslims within the state confines are mutually dichotomous goals.

Hitherto, the lingering Gandhian legacy of peaceful coexistence and the Nehruvian legacy of enthused secularism had been the guiding paradigms for Indian political evolution. Overtime, these paradigms seem to have weakened owing to the absence of effective leadership that was capable of inspiring them in the first place. In South Asian political culture ideas must find their incarnation in tangible human form before they can galvanize a following.

Unfortunately, the idealistic aspect of India’s political culture has deteriorated into bigotry, exclusive religiosity and underground terrorism begotten in no small measures by the unrelenting brutality unleashed by the state on defiant Kashmiri Muslims. India must come to terms with the fact that the struggle in Kashmir is not cross-border terrorism. The insurgency, even if bereft of Pakistani support, carries its own momentum.

The centre’s constant manipulation of and interference with, the electoral process in Occupied Kashmir throughout history is a testimony of the state being insecure about the true nature of the Kashmiri political sentiment. Its persistent refusal to allow international watch groups to monitor the Kashmiri situation is another manifestation of the fact that India is simply embarrassed of its doing when it comes to Kashmir.

The gains to be made out of a harmonious relationship with Pakistan, on the other hand, are many for India. Pakistan provides the trade route to the landlocked and economically resurgent states of Central Asia, whose energy resources, above all, should be a coveted sight for an importer like India, not to mention their collective strength as markets for India’s goods. BJP’s talking tough with Musharraf government reflects political short-sightedness on the part of its leadership. Musharraf represents the saner elements in Pakistani political set-up. His intellectual aversion to jihadi culture precedes September 11, although his ability to demolish the institutional embodiments of such a culture acquired muscle due to the events of September 11.

The current international crisis is not a clash of civilizations, as some ignorant persons in both the West and the Muslim world are trying to portray. The political crisis begotten by September 11, has crystalized a clash between the forces of religious extremism and the forces of moderation and modernization in the Islamic world. Hence it is an intra-civilization clash.

The Pakistan government, albeit a non-democratic one, represents the latter forces in the Muslim world. It is trying to undo the negative developments of the last twenty years and in so doing, its military nature has marshalled a much quicker pace than could have been mobilized in a democratic set-up. Trying to destabilize this government is like hitting a fully blown dandelion with a golf stick. If the centre in Pakistan weakens at this crucial juncture, numerous warlords would be looking to co-opt it through their allies in the armed forces in order to have access to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

As commented by an American scholar of Indian origin Ashutosh Varshney, if Pakistan implodes, it will not be like the implosion of the USSR, leaving behind a nuclear Russia with which nuclear business can, by and large, be conducted. The scenario is more likely to be like a nuclear Afghanistan, or a nuclear Somalia. Such a scenario is in nobody’s interest, least of all India’s.

The Kashmir dispute will not be resolved by either one of the parties’ unilateral disavowal of its current stance. The government that does that will be faced with political extinction, be it military government in Pakistan or an elected government in India. It will not lead to the reshaping of Indo-Pakistan relations on sustainable grounds. Hence both the parties, either bilaterally or through a third party mediation, must redefine their goals.

The current political regional environment is auspicious for a third party mediation, the US being an obvious arbitrator in this regard. It has reshaped its relations with India while enjoying a close relationship with Pakistan in its war on terrorism. If the US is able to arbitrate the dispute, it will be a feather in its cap at a time its current militaristic posture in the Third World is making the world uneasy.

Germany and Japan were democratized after a complete allied victory. No such measures were adopted for Iraq. The Iraqi population was not rid of Saddam Hussein, dissatisfaction with whose rule within Iraq is fathomable. Instead, the population was penalized under the crushing regime of perennial sanctions.

Similarly, no Marshall plan is in the offing for Afghanistan — a polity whose suffering began with the United States war on Communism in Afghanistan and continues with the US war on terrorism in Afghanistan. Given the US’s own economic woes, a prolonged economic engagement in Afghanistan is not feasible either.

AS I write this Yasser Arafat is still alive. I cannot say what will be his fate by the time this column appears in print. To physically eliminate an inconvenient opponent has long been accepted as a solution to an intractable problem.

Fidel Castro survives today despite the best (or worst) efforts of the agencies who co-opted the services of distinguished members of the underworld, that is to say, gangsters. Others, let them remain nameless, have not been that lucky.

Ariel Sharon, the torch-bearer of the highest virtues of humankind has said with utter honesty and God-fearing sincerity that the bombardment of Arafat’s headquarters, with tanks, mortars, helicopter gunships is an act of self-defence and simply a continuation of President Bush’s war against terrorism.

The Americans, in turn, feel that Yasser Arafat has not done enough to rein in the suicide-bombers which has emboldened Ariel Sharon to arrive at a ‘final solution’ of the Palestinian people. But he does not wish to harm Yasser Arafat. Just send him into exile with a one-way ticket. This is the Alice in Wonderland that Lewis Carrol would have written had he been a psychopath.

To go over the ground of the creation of Israel will serve no purpose. But there is one central fact that cannot be ignored. Shortly after the Balfour Declaration committing the British government to support the creation of a Jewish National Homeland in Palestine, Lord Balfour stated: “I do not care under what system we keep the oil, I am clear that it is all-important that this oil be made available.”

The US Secretary of State Cordell Hull was more explicit: “There should be full realization of the fact that the oil of Saudi Arabia constitutes one of the world’s greatest prizes.” It, therefore, became essential that this “great prize” remain under control of American oil companies. No better way than an Israel who would act as a watchdog and in return would be financed and armed, armed to the extent that Israel is the Middle East’s sole nuclear power, a fact that is not much advertised.

In the Israeli mindset, the Palestinians as a people do not exist. A former Israeli Minister of Information put it: “We do not consider the Arabs of the land (Palestine) an ethnic group nor a people with a distinct nationalistic character.” The former Prime Minister, Golda Meir was even more blunt: “It was not as though there was a Palestine people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestine people and we came and threw them out and took over their country away from them. They did not exist.”

In many ways, this was the same kind of arrogance displaced by the Indian National Congress in respect of the Muslims in pre-partition India. According to it, the Muslims were a minority and not a nation as the Quaid-i-Azam steadfastly maintained. The Hindu fundamentalists of the present times still maintain that position and still dream of undoing Pakistan.

The brutality that the Israelis are exhibiting against the Palestine people is not much different from the brutality of the Nazis. It is a comparision that the Israeli people must take to heart. They must remember that they were victims once of unspeakable acts of cruelty. That they were persecuted and hounded and millions were sent to gas-chambers. This should have bred in the Jewish people a compassion and sympathy for all oppressed people. It would seem that they are cleansing that memory by reeking vengeance on the Palestinians, a twisted transfer for the Arabs have never been enemies of the Jews.

The Palestinians stand alone. There is much sound and fury in their support but no tangible action. The international community has expressed its concern but in polite language. There has been no outright condemnation. Ariel Sharon says that Israel is at war. True but it is a war that Israel has started and the Palestinians are simply on the receiving end.

To hear the Israeli spokespersons on television, the Israelis have clean hands, defending themselves with their tanks and mortars against the weapons of mass destruction of the Palestinians which happen to be sling-shots.

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the United States could stop the carnage if it wanted to but for reasons that are not apparent, it has taken a hands-off approach and seems, somehow, to hold Yasser Arafat responsible and there is not even a rap on the knuckles of Ariel Sharon.

Surely, they must know that there is little, very little that Arafat can do to stop the suicide-bombings. Arafat’s hands must be strengthened if the peace process has to be restored. There will be no peace, if he is humiliated, made a prisoner in his own home and the worst-case, if he is killed. The entire world supported the United States when terrorists struck the world Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC.

But Ariel Sharon has made sure that the pot is kept boiling in the Middle East and we may well find that we have more terrorists than we had before the war against terror started. This would seem to be, even to a simple-minded person, a self-defeating policy.

AN article titled “The water dispute” written by former Secretary of Water & Power, Mr Shahid Hussain, was published in Dawn on March 4. The writer failed to pinpoint the causes of the dispute and could not offer any solution. It was his responsibility as head of the ministry to have actively initiated storage dams as provided in paras 2, 4, 6 and 12 of the water accord to meet the shortage of water and end the dispute.

In his article Mr Shahid Hussain has bitterly criticised the water accord, the working of IRSA and its past and present engineer members, alleging that IRSA failed to resolve the dispute. He has specifically maligned the former federal member saying that he was appointed with the sole purpose of providing him a post-retirement slot of the then joint secretary of water & power. (Interestingly, he was himself then the additional secretary water & power).

He also wanted to humiliate the IRSA for its autonomous working because IRSA directed the secretary to correct the faults in the policy planning and engineering management of water resources development and to carry out integrated comprehensive water management and build the storage as required by the water accord and the preamble of the IRSA Act. Since he could not harm IRSA or its federal member, he hit upon a plan to change the IRSA Act by repealing the vital section 4 of the Act.

This is regarding the appointment of engineer members under which the provinces and the federal government nominated high ranking and renowned irrigation engineers as members. The essence of the Act was to nominate engineers having vast experience of the Indus basin irrigation system and of their own province to carry out the purposes of section 3 of the IRSA Act. This was also essential as per the preamble of IRSA Act to foresee and monitor the water resources of the Indus River and to provide for all connected and ancillary matters to water resources development and to remove its faults.

Mr. Shahid Hussain as secretary apparently misguided the prime minister and got repealed section 4 of the IRSA Act that provided for the nomination of engineer members. As a result, non-professional officers who were holding charge of secretary irrigation in the provinces automatically replaced all the five renowned engineer members before time.

They were given dual charge and appointed as ex-officio IRSA members. This anti-development change from professional engineers to non-professionals was in violation of section 27 of the PEC Act besides destroying the professionalism of IRSA and rendering water accord implementation ineffective. Such illegal posting is punishable with fine and six months imprisonment under section 27 of the Pakistan Engineering Council Act 1976.

A serious wrong was committed through the misuse of power, authority and trickery by removing the engineers and replacing them by non-professionals as it became impossible to carry out the purposes and functions of IRSA Act as specified in the constitution of the Authority under section-3 of the IRSA Act.

To have engineer members was the constitutional requirement of the IRSA Act as provided in section-4 of the Act for the implementation of the water accord as confirmed in its para 13. A professional body was broken and converted into a weak satellite of serving non-professional officials thereby violating section 3 of the IRSA Act and Section 27 of the PEC Act.

Mr. Shahid Hussain quoted his former boss, then Secretary Water & Power (now absconding and wanted by NAB) who said that “Regretfully, IRSA has turned into a debating society”. He had forgotten that the provinces fought for a very long time debating the sharing of water through numerous commissions but failed to settle the water dispute.

How can five members of IRSA who inherited the dispute settle it when there is acute and increasing shortage of water owing to silting of Tarbela and Mangla besides continuous drought? In fact, the dispute was started by the former secretary in 1994 when he interfered in IRSA’s working by forming inter-provincial committee and forcing its decisions. This illegal act was severely criticised by me when I was chairman IRSA. The intrusion of this illegal committee was the basic cause of the dispute and not the shortage of water as that was already there.

No power on earth can resolve water dispute unless a very huge storage like the one at Katzarah on the Indus having storage capacity up to 35 maf is created as suggested in various reports of the IRSA. The secretaries of water and power could not see the legal provision of 17.35 maf of storage provided in para 2 and 12 of the water accord. The storage water requirement of para 2 is 12.35 maf (117.35-105) and the requirement for drainage from flood water storage under para 12 is about 5 maf.

Besides this, gross storage lost due to silting including dead storage in Tarbela and Mangla is about 6 maf that should have been replaced long ago. The total storage need is (12.35 +5+6)= 23.35 maf. What prevented the secretary from foreseeing and advising the government to initiate storage? How can IRSA or anybody else meet this huge deficiency to resolve the dispute without new storage? What prevented the secretary from suggesting an alternative dam site other than Kalabagh?

Why a huge storage at Katzarah pointed out by former Member NWFP and Dr. Peiter Lieftnick was not initiated? What prevented the secretary from initiating the implementation of the basic paras 2, 4, 6, 12 and 14(e) of the water accord in eleven years to fight drought that caused hunger and death? Why did he not enable the provinces to formulate new schemes as per the specific provision in para V, part II of the water accord?

Why did he fail to advise the disputing provinces to go to the CCI for ending the dispute? Did the secretary ever inform the government about the failure of SCARPs and the NDP besides pumping and misusing saline drainage effluent as ground-water up to 43 maf that is 70 per cent saline sodic? All this proves that non-professional policy makers could not assess future professional needs.

Mr Shahid Hussain has criticised the water accord saying, “the seeds for the current discord between two major provinces were embedded in the Accord”. This criticism can bring the provinces once again at loggerhead at this critical juncture when a hue and cry is being raised against Thal canal. The fact is that shortage of water for irrigation and drainage was seen at the time of signing the water accord and therefore duly provided in para 2 and 12 of the Accord for implementation.

To meet these requirements specific para 4 and 6 were provided for storage from the 35 maf waste flow to the sea due to floods and 52 maf of seepage water from the wasteful canal system. This is why para 14 (e) provided that “all efforts would be made to avoid wastage”. The waste flow is 87 maf of water out of 142 maf that comes to more than 15 times the storage of Basha dam.

IRSA repeatedly emphasized the formulation of new irrigation, drainage, storage and water management schemes as per the Accord but no one paid heed to it. The source of discord is not the water accord but the appointment of non-professional head of the ministry of water and power and the provincial secretaries appointed against professional posts in violation of the PEC Act.

Moreover, under section 8 of the IRSA Act (Powers & duties of the Authority), IRSA is not given any inherent high status to exercise financial, administrative, punitive and policy decision making powers of its own to build dams in order to end shortage of water as that alone can settle disputes. As per the preamble of IRSA Act its job is only monitoring i.e. to advise, warn, keep a watch over and direct the concerned authorities as a monitor and to distribute “the available water as per water accord”.

The monitoring of water resources was perfectly done by IRSA as 32 printed technical reports for implementing each para of the water accord including the correction of all connected and ancillary matters were written by former member NWFP and discussed in the Authority.

These reports were sent to the federal secretary and the provinces for immediate action but no one initiated the implementation of the water accord and attempted to correct its faulty connected matters. These reports are lying unread.

IRSA has no magic power to create water to end the dispute. Those who suffer should demand storage dams from those who have the power to build them to remove the shortage. The unending disputes can only end if Katzarah dam having storage capacity of up to 35 maf i.e. 6 times that of Basha dam, generating 15000 MW power and life span of 1000 years is built.

It is the height of inertness and poor administration on the part of all concerned including the so-called planning commission that no one brought to the notice of President Musharraf that Pakistan like China has a huge three-gorges dam at Katzarah on the Indus to irrigate 10 million acres of barren lands.

The writer is former chairman, IRSA.