| October 16, 2002 | Wednesday | Sha’aban 9, 1423 |
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CBR fails to deliver
‘Europe hard on immigrants’
Pakistanis in US
Foreign and domestic loans
Peeping into Muslims’ lives
Election expenses
Performance of SLIC
Rigging charges
PTCL advertisement
MMA’s victory in polls
Aptitude tests
New phone connections
Allure of python: more information
FOR some time past I have been reading letters directed against the multinationals — the most useful segment of our society. Over a period of time these multinationals have become Pakistan’s partners in progress. In most of the multinationals the staff including the chief, the country managers and almost the entire top cadre of management consists of Pakistanis.
In the event of their being not in operation, the government will not get half as much taxes as it gets now for they are honest tax payers. The seth who will replace them will pocket most of the profits, the government’s taxes and the liberal and benign outlook that the multinationals have, will be replaced by an outlook in which the employees will not get as many facilities as they get now nor perhaps, as much salary.
The quality standards that the multinationals have established are sublime. Besides, their concern for their consumer is very genuine. One example will suffice: many Pakistani concerns put cooking oils on the shelves without the required treatment.
The Pakistani companies skip many steps during the process of production not caring a jot if their cooking oils will make their consumers develop cardiac problems or make them ill in the long run whereas the multinationals make these cooking oils safe for human consumption before marketing them. They don’t forgo the vital operations, which cost money to execute.
The seth may not spend a penny on patronizing cultural activities — fashion shows and musical concerts. He may not patronize or sponsor plays and drama serials on television. One can’t praise enough the role and conduct of the multinationals on this account. They are the most enthusiastic patrons of art and cultural activities in the country.
It isn’t that they save taxes by spending on the patronage of arts. It only speaks for their positive outlook.
Nationalization has been a harrowing experience for us. Hundreds of factories that were nationalized in the hope that they will bring in more prosperity are closed. Thousands of people have lost their jobs; the banks have billions of rupees stuck up in machinery.
These critics should think for a moment that there are many 100 per cent Pakistani multinationals, which are in operation, in Africa, the CIS countries and the operations of a few extend to the USA and Europe.
Some of the medicines of a Pakistani multinational are medicines of choice in an African country. There is enough room for growth for the Pakistani multinationals abroad. The critics should broaden their outlook.
AZMAT ANSARI
Karachi
THIS has reference to CBR’s half-page advertisement and a news item regarding promotion of six IT officers from grade-20 to 21 (Oct 11).
As a matter of fact despite the so-called IT reforms and in-house promotions, IT officials have not been able to deliver the goods and to meet their tailor-made and unrealistic estimated targets which they build (themselves) every year in the beginning of fiscal year.
They have failed to provide essential services to the tax payers. I have been a regular tax-payer for the last 20 years but never receive the assessment order unless the new date for filing of ‘IT wealth returns’ is announced for the new fiscal year. They have ample time for assessing and sending the assessment orders to the assessees well before the expiry of new fiscal year enabling them to know the fate of their last year’s return.
Further more, the basic and essential facilities, which include proper seating arrangement, drinking water and toilets etc., are lacking at the main IT building. The condition of rooms, where the record is kept is deplorable I saw some cupboards closed with ropes instead of locks.
Recently there was news regarding appointment of about 25 outsiders as experts/consultants (who will definitely draw their salaries in six figures) to suggest the ways and means for improving the performance of the Income Tax Department. If it is so, the recent promotions do not appear to be justified.
KH. TAJAMMUL HUSSAIN
Karachi
THIS is with reference to Nitin Goyal’s letter, ‘Europe hard on immigrants’ (Oct l2). He maintains that the West enjoys prosperity because they have worked hard for it and that illegal immigrants are like flies wanting a lick of the pie which is not theirs.
I would like to point out that for hundreds of years the West had plundered the third world countries and drained their resources to set up industries in their own countries. They had colonized vast areas all around the globe, killing millions. If they have now garbed themselves as civilized people, we should not forget their past which was by no means untarnished. The pie which the flies are after has been made from ingredients which belonged to the poorer nations.
Mr Nitin has also written that the desire to have a better life in a promised land does not morally or legally justify illegal immigration just as the desire to be rich does not justify theft as a route to being wealthy. In my opinion, if a person commits a theft because of starvation, then no reasonable person would consider it wrong. No person would think to leave his country and family for an illegal immigration unless he is compelled to do so by poverty and other miseries.
ANIL KHAN LUNI
Karachi
This refers to the letter by Dr Shahab Javid (Oct 13).
I think he is being greatly unfair to both the US and Pakistanis living there. He says they should come back to Pakistan and give up “their petrol pumps, laundries, corner shops and mini-cab service.” How wrong he could be!
Pakistanis in America are to be found in every walk of life. They are professors, bankers, businessmen, think-tank experts, IT professionals, doctors, engineers, scientists, researchers and what not. Lots of Pakistanis work in white collar jobs in federal, state and city governments, and at least two Pakistanis I know work for the armed forces.
A Pakistani scientist, Dr Rasool, was number two man in NASA’s moon project; another Pakistani was (or perhaps is) a member of the Democratic National Committee that ran Bill Clinton’s election campaign; and at least one Pakistani is a legislator in a state congress (New Hampshire’s perhaps).
Pakistanis do not just own ‘corner ships’; they own fancy restaurants, are shareholders in banks, airlines and factories, and one Pakistani once owned America’s biggest software firm.
Thousands of Pakistanis live in palatial mansions that will put to shame our DHA bungalows.
This is a tribute both to Pakistanis and to American society which showed no bias against them — until 9/11.
RIZWAN YASIN
Karachi
THIS is with reference to the article, ‘An economic balance sheet’ by Mr Kaiser Bengali (Oct 9 and 10). The article presents a very useful insight into the fiscal and financial performance of various regimes viz-a-viz their respective economic policies.
The tall claims of the present regime about the foreign exchange reserves have also been analytically described. However, conflicting and contradicting views keep arising in different sections of the press regarding foreign and domestic loans taken by various regimes.
In the spirit of transparency and for the sake of providing truthful information to the people of Pakistan, the State Bank and the Ministry of Finance should be requested to publish the details of all the foreign and domestic loans borrowed since Oct 12, 1999.
Total amount of each loan, markup rate, components of foreign exchange and/or domestic currency and all the conditions associated with the loan, should be published. This alone would make a useful yardstick for judging the performance of the government that takes over as a result of the current elections.
ABDUL RASHEED KHAN
Karachi
THIS is with reference to a letter from Mr Bashir A. Syed, ‘Peeping into Muslims’ lives’ (Oct 12), regarding the conditions under which Muslims are now living in the United States. The latest in this respect is the requirement for all Muslim immigrants to be finger-printed while entering the US.
Under these circumstances, all Muslims — Arabs and non-Arabs — should take a unanimous decision to avoid visiting the US for study. This would help us explore other avenues of learning. Beside this, all affluent Muslims should start transferring their wealth and other assets from the US to other countries.
The present attitude of Americans towards Muslims is a slur on the face of the ummah and should be taken seriously by everyone.
S. ANWAR HUSSAIN
Karachi
ACCORDING to reports, candidates and political parties have spent about Rs12 billion on their election campaigns and the government has wasted Rs1 billion of the tax payer’s money to conduct these elections.
Ours is a poor country while the politicians are rich. Why doesn’t the government charge these individuals and parties a reasonable fee for contesting the elections? Most of the parties charge even their diehard workers a fee when they apply for a party ticket for elections. In the same way, every individual who files papers for elections should be made to pay a certain fee to the government towards the election expenses’ fund. With thousands of candidates applying for the hundreds of constituencies, the country’s coiffeurs can get richer by millions and, therefore, the tax-payer’s money would not be wasted in holding elections.
In any case, contesting an election is beyond a poor man’s reach.
JAMAL NASIR MEMON
Karachi
THIS refers to the letter headlined, ‘Performance of SLIC’ by Ovais Ali Shareef (Oct 8). The letter is self-explanatory of the performance of State Life Insurance Corporation (Slic) spanning three decades of its existence.
In the recent past, the present management of Slic had undertaken a restructuring of the marketing force in line with the Insurance Ordinance 2000 that is aimed at procuring quality new business i.e. (first year, renewal and persistency), safeguarding the policy-holders’ interest and to putting an end to dummy business.
The existing and new entrants of Slic marketing force are now bound to get them registered as per the Insurance Ordinance 2000 to work as bona fide sales persons. Keeping in view the said measures the Slic management has offered a retirement plan with paid benefits to all those working as ‘dummy’ field workers. At the other end, the real producers/business leaders comprising the Slic marketing force are happy and satisfied with this restructuring that offers them the real benefits of their labour.
KAMRAN CHANNA
State Life Insurance Corp.
Karachi
ALLEGATIONS of mass scale rigging in favour of the PML(Q), the so-called King’s Party, have been made by the European Union observers and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. I am not in a position to refute or support the allegations but if the allegations are correct, I wonder why Mian Azhar, the President of the PML(Q), and other heavyweights like Ilahi Bakhsh Soomro, Abida Hussain, and Fakhr lmam, lost the elections.
Further, why the King’s Party could not get a clear majority in the National and Provincial assemblies and how PPP Parliamentarians and MMA, the two parties openly opposed to Musharraf government, secured so many seats in the National Assembly that if they decide to cooperate with each other, they would be in a much stronger position to form a government.
Even the pleas of two PML(Q) candidates for recounting have been rejected. What a rigging!
S. NAQI HASAN
Lahore
IN Dawn’s Sept 27 issue, there was an advertisement by the PTCL offering computerized forms to the customers who wanted to avail of an easier process for getting a new telephone connection at their place. On my visit to the Clifton exchange on Sept 28, I was greatly disappointed to discover that the staff concerned did not know anything about the forms.
I would like to know why the scheme had been advertised without making necessary arrangements at the exchanges?
JAHANGIR NAZAR
Karachi
WHEN one thinks of the overwhelming majority with which MMA has won in the NWFP, one might attribute it to a sympathy for the geographically close Taliban. But the same cannot be said about other areas where MMA has been successful, particularly in parts of Punjab.
This is for the first time that citizens in the age group of 18 to 21 years have been allowed to exercise their right to vote and this is also for the first time that religious parties have been able to gain a significant success. What can be concluded from this is that the youth of the country is about to bring an Islamic revolution in the country.
The victory of MMA is a healthy sign because it changes the direction towards Islam.
NOSHEEN ISLAM
Karachi
THIS refers to Benish Hussain’s letter, ‘Aptitude tests’ (Oct 13).
The high-ups of the various universities in the province of Sindh, working under the same chancellor, have in their own wisdom decided to hold pre-entry aptitude tests for BS (CS) and BBA (Hon) on the same date and time but at different venues. Perhaps they think that the candidates possess the supernatural powers to appear simultaneously at three different centres, a hundred miles apart.
The Mehran University of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, was the first to announce that the said tests would be held on Oct 27. This was done at least one and half months back, allowing the other institutions to frame up their own schedules avoiding a clash with the date already announced. But the Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, and the University of Karachi decided to go for the same date and the same time, closing the doors to candidates who wanted to take a chance with all the three institutions.
Ironically, no one seems to be taking any notice of this very badly written script of a cheap comedy. Wake up somebody, students in distress need your help urgently.
QAMAR SHABAZ
Karachi
THE residents of Gulshan-i-Maymar are faced with a peculiar problem in respect of obtaining a new telephone connection. When the Azizabad Exchange, within the jurisdiction of which this area lies, is approached for providing a connection, they outright reject it saying that there is a technical fault in that area.
However, the same people also say that if you can grease the palms of the line man of that sector, the connection might be provided.
I request the concerned authorities to investigate the matter.
SYED HASAN RAZA
Karachi
THIS refers to the letter ‘Allure of python: more information’ (Sept 26). I would like to add some information with intent for creating understanding for this misunderstood creature.
In September 1988, while working as a medical officer at Basic Health Unit, Sanjar, along the dry banks of Sutlej River, I was informed by a few patients about a huge snake that can swallow lambs.
The villagers normally avoided passing through this dense uncultivated area. Despite sweating in scorching heat, I was unable to track down the python. In October 1988, the Sutlej experienced worst floods since 1956. When the water started receding, this huge creature was shot dead by a landlord while swimming across a dhand, a few kilometres downstream from that spot. I arrived a little too late on the scene to save the python. It measured over 16 feet. Its carcass floated in the water for several days and was witnessed by hundreds of people.
In March 2000, while riding across the Suleman Range, I saw a huge wild olive tree perched at 5,500 feet. The locals called it ‘Siah Mar Huss’ or the tree of black serpent.
An old legend tells us of a huge snake which would eat up animals roaming near this tree. It turned into man-eater. The serpent was finally killed by a brave pir who himself died in the mortal conflict.
Further probe during my subsequent visits revealed that until a few decades ago, sighting of large pythons was not uncommon on this mountain. A cool damp climate, natural springs, dense vegetation provided an excellent habitat for the pythons, until Afghan war broke out in 1980s. The introduction of cheap weaponry and bullets accounted for the extermination of pythons.
The last python was shot six months before my first visit. It measured as thick as an adult’s thigh and its bones were like those of a lamb. Some local hunters informed me about the presence of a huge python living in narrow cave in the valley between this spot and the Beeho mountain (8,300 ft) in Balochistan. The last of the python might still be surviving in that remote valley.
The pet shops in Lahore offer neither those exotic snakes transported in container nor the wild ones. Bilal Mansur’s writeup (Sept 22) on pythons is based on some western articles and is far from local realities.
Zoos in Pakistan will be glad to accept snakes, be it a python. Until a few years ago, Bahawalpur Zoo had some pythons but they are not there any more.
Pythons like other snakes are always taken as threat to humans and it is a common belief that killing them would bring instant divine blessing. On the contrary they are excellent pets and are nature’s balancing mechanism for rodents and pests control. It is time to change our attitude towards these wonderful creatures, before they become as dead as ‘Dodo’.
DR RAHEAL A. SIDDIQUI
Dera Ghazi Khan
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