Crutches of subsidy

THE government has done well to delay the notification of power tariff hike allowed to Wapda by Nepra last week. Instead, it has decided to make good Wapda’s losses by providing a subsidy of Rs. 15 billion. In anticipation of a similar situation perhaps, it has also been decided to provide the KESC with a similar amount of subsidy. To lighten the burden of Wapda and to get it into better shape for privatisation, its past losses amounting to Rs. 40 billion were converted into government equity some time ago. On Wednesday the Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet (ECC) followed suit in the case of the KESC as well and converted the Corporation’s losses of Rs. 93 billion into equities. The first step saves the domestic consumers from an unbearable increase in the power tariffs and the industries from uneconomic increases in the cost of inputs. The second step attempts to prepare the two losing entities for privatization. But both these measures in the final analysis would increase the burden on the taxpayers ultimately because it is from the revenues collected from the people that the government would be financing the subsidies as well as the equities.

This cannot go on for ever. In fact, it has to be stopped at the earliest to spare the economy an unacceptable burden. It is, therefore, imperative that Wapda and the KESC authorities put their own houses in order at the earliest. This they can do by cutting the line losses and improving their operational efficiency. Wapda claims that it is suffering line losses to the tune of 26 per cent whereas the KESC’s losses have been estimated at 40 per cent. Knowing Wapda’s past record of making misstatements about its line losses, it is very hard to take its current claim of 26 per cent line losses at its face value. Critics of Wapda’s inefficiency and management believe these losses to be still in the neighbourhood of 40 per cent. According to one calculation, one per cent of Wapda losses translate into Rs. 2.4 billion in revenue losses. So even if the line losses are only 26 per cent, Wapda is losing as much as Rs. 63 billion annually.

These losses have to be drastically reduced by both the KESC and Wapda. Indeed, the two can save billions more by sprucing up their operations, thus reducing the escalating burden on the national exchanger. Or else, electricity would go increasingly out of the reach of even the middle classes and the country’s manufacturing and agricultural products too would become uncompetitive in the international markets. The result would be an overall reduction in demand for goods and services which in turn would further deepen the already acute recession in the country. Both Wapda and the KESC are being managed by the army at the moment. But contrary to expectations, this experiment too has not yielded the desired results. It is time to put an end to this experiment.

More of jirga justice

THE country had barely recovered from the shock of the panchayat-decreed gang rape in Meerwala when another appalling example of tribal justice hit the headlines. The setting this time was Mianwali, the ‘judges’ the area’s leading notables and the victims eight innocent young girls. The incident once again exposed the dark side of our society and the sheer savagery of decisions taken in the name of customs and traditions. Four men on death row had urged their families to try and seek a compromise with the heirs of the deceased in order to save their lives. The deal was brokered by the area’s most well-known landlords, former legislators and religious leaders. The verdict, pronounced before a large crowd of local people, was shocking: the family of the deceased would forgive the killers if eight women from the murderers’ families plus eight million rupees were handed over to them. According to reports, two teenaged girls aged 15 and 14 have already been married off to men aged 77 and 55 as part of the deal. Following reports of the incident in the press, there was a wave of outraged reaction from women’s groups and human rights organizations.

One redeeming feature of this sordid episode is that the Supreme Court has immediately taken suo motu notice of the case. Contending that the compromise deal appears to violate the law, the chief justice has ordered the local sessions judge to submit a report on the matter within three days. This swift intervention reflects a positive new trend in the judiciary. Suo motu notice was also taken in the Meerwala gang rape case when the shocking story hit the headlines last month. A common point in the two incidents is the way traditional institutions, such as the jirga and panchayat, were used to mete out the most primitive and cruel forms of justice which have no basis in our law or religion.

In both cases, a large number of local people were witnesses to these outrageous decisions and their prompt implementation. Two terrifying incidents in Punjab were also chilling examples of how people can easily fall prey to a mob mentality and indulge in unspeakably cruel acts. In each incident, a person was accused of blasphemy after he fell foul of a local maulvi. In Chak Jhumra, the man was lynched by the frenzied mob. In Jaranwala, the man targeted was lucky to escape a similar fate at the hands of his enraged pursuers. Incidents such as these raise a number of disturbing questions about the direction Pakistani society is moving in. However, it must also be remembered that such incidents are coming to light more frequently these days because they are being reported and because there are civil society and rights groups that agitate when such excesses occur. There are a number of complex reasons why people are turning increasingly to primitive forms of justice. The growing uncertainty about protection of law and the failure of the justice system to deliver are clearly important factors. This vacuum is being increasingly filled by traditional systems and institutions.

In the absence of meaningful national politics in the 1980s, there was a swift trend towards parochial regrouping on the basis of tribal and biradari sentiments and identities. When the political parties returned to the scene in the late 1980s, they were unable to reverse this trend. They also largely failed to pull civil society out of the regressive spin of the Zia years and to counter his poisonous legacy by spreading awareness and tolerance among the people. Clearly, laws alone cannot change this deep-seated and pervasive malaise. The political parties and civil society, especially the intelligentsia, must try more actively to spread awareness and rebuild the people’s weakened confidence in the rule of the law and the institutions of the state. At the state level, it is essential to extend the writ of the law to all parts of the country and enforce it firmly. Failure to do so could well see the country go deeper into anarchy and violence.