Continuity of reforms

IT is reassuring to know that the approaching change of government will cause no drastic shift in the economic policies being pursued by the present regime over the last three years in close collaboration with the multilateral aid agencies. This was reiterated once again by the government the other day while briefing the chief of the visiting IMF review mission. Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz lent added force to the reassurance by telling the IMF’s Klaus Enders that President Pervez Musharraf, who would remain in the saddle for the next five years, would ensure that the present economic and financial policies were not reversed. The government rightly feels that these policies have not only helped it overcome the post-September 11 crisis, drought and the tensions with India but have also enabled the country to accumulate record foreign exchange reserves, to cut down on current account and budgetary deficits and finally to break the five-year long economic stagnation, with both revenue collection and foreign trade topping the budgetary targets.

There are high hopes that the continuation of these policies will enable Pakistan to achieve a 4.5 per cent GDP growth rate during the current year, attract direct foreign investment and reduce poverty. In anticipation of an improvement in revenue income, the government has already made higher allocations in the public sector development programme hoping this to generate economic activity. It also plans to increase spending in the social sectors, especially health, education and human resource development, to increase skill development facilities and to reduce poverty in a holistic manner. Against this backdrop, Mr. Aziz’s claim that Pakistan’s macro-economic stability and the transparent, fast-track privatization programme have restored investor confidence in the financial health of the country and that it is becoming an attractive destination for foreign investors in the region needs seems credible. He believes Pakistan’s foreign direct investment potential, coupled with privatization, is likely to attract over one billion dollars during the current financial year. He also expects the remittances for the year to go beyond the three billion dollar mark.

Since the data on which all these projections are based seems irrefutable, it would not be out of place here to suggest to the next government to take a close and hard look at them and decide for itself how it would like to cope with the challenges of continuity on the economic front in the face of the hardships for the masses that the on-going reforms do involve. Here is where the leadership qualities of the new rulers would be tested. They would have to take the entire nation along while pressing on with these reforms until the time these reforms start yielding the expected results. They must also keep in mind that real prosperity is neither around the corner nor is it easy to achieve. It will take Herculean efforts of two or three generations and enormous hardships and sacrifices for the goal to materialize.

It is the duty of the elected leaders to take the nation into confidence on this and prepare it for such sacrifices, making sure at the same time that the hardship is borne equitably by all classes and not by the poor alone. At the same time, one expects the multilateral aid agencies to understand the complexities of running an elected government as opposed to governing by executive fiat. The Fund and the World Bank are thus expected to give the elected government the needed leeway to pace the reforms in a way that minimizes the attendant hardships at a given time, making it possible to carry on with the process with the willing cooperation of the people.

Jordan’s predicament

LATEST developments in the Middle East spell troubled times for Jordan. Following last month’s murder of an American diplomat in Amman, things have been quite unsettling. The latest siege of the impoverished southern city of Maan — now a confirmed hideout of scores of wanted anti-American Arab militants — and over 100 arrests made by the Jordanian security forces in recent days, add to the vulnerability of the Hashmite kingdom whose 60 per cent of 4.5 million people comprise Palestinian refugees. These are indeed trying circumstances for Jordan to be grappling with; more so, because it borders both Iraq and Israel — two simmering hot spots of conflict in the region. Thus caught, literally in the line of fire, with an economically and politically deprived and restive population, Jordan, out of a choice, has to play its difficult role as a partner in America’s ‘war on terror’ without bringing its internal fragility to a cracking point.

King Abdullah III, who succeeded his late father King Hussain three years ago, is under severe pressure from Washington not only to help the US wage war against Iraq but also to round up the Arab militants who are believed to have fought in Afghanistan under Osama bin Laden’s command, and are now hiding in Jordan. The wanted men include Egyptian, Iraqi, Palestinian and Jordanian nationals, and Wail al-Shalabi, the key suspect wanted for the American diplomat’s murder in Amman. The southern Bedouin tribes of Maan sheltering these militants and refusing to hand them over to the authorities have a history of volatile behaviour. They also have strong tribal ties with their wealthy cousins across the border in Saudi Arabia. This, the CIA insists, completes the scene for a possible regrouping of Al Qaeda — America’s dreaded nightmare. Jordan, heavily dependent on US military and economic aid, can ill-afford to adopt the stance King Hussain did during the Gulf War of 1990. The Israelis and the Americans know that and are pushing King Abdullah to the precipice a fall from which may have grave implications for an Arab world already in jitters over the US-Iraq and Israel-Palestine conflicts.

Locking out justice

THE report of two Christian men languishing in jail in Peshawar for almost three years waiting for their case to be tried is distressing. Both men, suspects in a bomb blast case, have repeatedly protested their innocence before the authorities and have now requested the Peshawar High Court to judge whether there is any evidence to justify their arrest and detention. Both men say that the police arrested them after a local shopkeeper, with whom they claim to have a dispute, accused them of throwing an explosive inside his shop. However, investigations later revealed that the blast was caused by a gas cylinder and not by anything thrown from outside.

The point here is not that the two men should have been set free but that they should have at least been produced before a court and given a chance to prove their innocence. Indeed, the police should have been required to complete their investigation within a reasonable period of time and on the basis of their findings either to prosecute the arrested men or set them free. Thirty-four months are too long a period for any person or persons to be kept in prison on mere suspicion of culpability — with no evidence to back up this course of police action and not even a preliminary hearing of the supposed case being held in a court of law. The Peshawar High Court will no doubt take all this into account in deciding on the fate of the two hapless prisoners.