| April 24, 2002 | Wednesday | Safar 10, 1423 |
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French voters shock
Hockey infrastructure
IT is an indication of the continued American interest in Pakistan’s economic development that President Bush has sent a supplemental request to Congress for an additional $145 million in aid for the current financial year. This will bring the total US aid to Pakistan for the current year to $746 million. The immediate impact of this assistance will be reflected in our balance of payments position, which since 9/11 has started showing signs of significant improvement. Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz, who has been meeting the US officials, including Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, in connection with the setting up of a joint US-Pakistan economic forum, has said that Washington is at the moment also firming up the amount of assistance for Islamabad in the next US financial year commencing from Sept 1, 2002. This, again, is welcome news.
The bulk of the money amounting to $75 million from supplemental assistance has appropriately been allocated for border security, $40 million for infrastructure, and smaller sums for counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism. The first meeting of the joint economic forum, held last week, reviewed global and regional economic and financial developments, exchanged views on efforts to increase global economic growth, and discussed the economic reforms being implemented in Pakistan to support a more rapid, broad-based and job-creating growth. The joint forum, which will meet once a year or as circumstances warrant, has been described as an important vehicle for the exchange of ideas on important economic and financial policy matters and is considered by Pakistan as significant because it marks the first bilateral arrangement of its kind in the post-cold war era.
These are all welcome developments and augur well for Pakistan’s long-term economic interests. The US not only has the ability on its own to help its friends overcome their economic difficulties, it can influence the multilateral aid agencies significantly to be more generous with resources and less stringent with conditionalities. Pakistan could use the joint forum to put before the US the real hurdles in the way of Pakistan’s efforts to graduate from a dole-dependent country to one which can stand on its own feet.
If Pakistan could use its new found influence with Washington through the joint economic forum to get the IMF and the World Bank relax this condition so that it could spend more on social and physical infrastructure, perhaps this country could get out of its deepening recession. This would create jobs and expand the economy, boost exports and generate resources to meet the ever-increasing expenditures, both development and non-development. Though the joint forum in its first meeting did not discuss the issue of an increased market access to Pakistani goods, efforts could be made on the sidelines of this forum, when it meets next, to explain our point to those US departments which deal with the subject. Our aim should be to offer to the US investors opportunities in Pakistan to make use of the increase in market access by relocating in Pakistan the US-based textile units which have become uneconomic.
THE political earthquake that shook France following the first round of the presidential election continues to send shock waves across Europe and beyond. The unexpected emergence of the ultra right-wing Jean-Marie Le Pen as the main challenger to President Jacques Chirac for the top job in the land has stunned the political establishment and provoked an unprecedented realignment of domestic political forces. Defying all predictions, the National Front’s Le Pen came a close second behind the incumbent Chirac, ousting sitting Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin from the race. His success has dismayed both the North African and Jewish groups, which have expressed their dismay at the rise of a man who is so openly xenophobic.
His success has forced all the mainstream forces to rally round Chirac, with even the bitterly opposed Socialists and Communists urging the voters to come out in his support to block the far right from taking power. Le Pen’s victory can be attributed to a number of factors. Many voters have steadily become disillusioned with traditional politics and were not keen to endorse either the uncharismatic Jospin or the relatively tainted Chirac. A large number clearly decided to lodge their protest by voting for one of the numerous alternative candidates from the left and right. While the outsider Le Pen was the main beneficiary of this disenchantment with traditional politics, Jospin became its main casualty. Le Pen’s success also owes itself to the post-Sept 11 mood in France and the ensuing anti-Muslim backlash.
While Chirac is expected to win the second round comfortably in May, Le Pen’s strong showing has shaken the political establishment in Paris as well as other European capitals. France’s lurch to the right, preceded by that of Austria and Italy, should serve as a wake-up call to a continent that has long prided itself as the staunchest upholder of liberal values.
THE saddening story of the Hockey Club of Pakistan — one of the leading and oldest venues geared to the requirement of the game’s modernized version — told graphically in Dawn’s sports section will, one hopes, awaken the authorities concerned to the need for immediate action. Even if the reported version is exaggerated and “biased” as contended by the PHF secretary, the remedial measures and repair operation leave much to be desired. The pitch is in such a bad shape that players in a fast-moving game like hockey could get injured. Apart from the dilapidated state of the astro-turf and the deteriorating pitch in patches, the stadium, now in tatters, demands urgent attention. If the bureaucratic delays persist this internationally recognized and reputed hockey centre could suffer serious damage. There is no cogent and convincing explanation for any further negligence when neither the funds nor facilities are lacking. Only last year, President Pervez Musharraf sanctioned a Rs 160 million grant for installing new pitches at five centres, including Karachi. The approved development plan for refurbishing it, as claimed by the present PHF management, should be promptly executed.
If, despite having an abundance of talent at home, we are today being pushed back and losing our position of primacy on the international hockey stage, one of the reasons is insufficient and sub-standard infrastructure. The central role of astro-turf requires that it be maintained according to international standards both for training and for international events. This stadium, let us not forget, has hosted six of the eleven Champions Trophy tournaments, Pakistan organized. Similar organisational failures and lapses on the part of the authorities concerned have lately been reported at various levels elsewhere. The Punjab University campus is yet to be equipped with a synthetic surface earmarked for the purpose several years ago. Educational institutions, from schools upwards, and clubs if properly equipped could become the reservoirs of all-round sports talent. Our rivals in the world arena, particularly in the West, where hockey has lately become a popular game, are marching far ahead of the Asian region, which once dominated Olympic and international hockey.