Need for open government

THE need for good governance in developing countries has been stressed increasingly by political thinkers, and enlightened political leaders in them as well as donor states. That is regarded as imperative to fight poverty and the pervasive human misery, eliminate the vast waste of their resources, including manpower, reduce social tensions and accelerate economic growth.

One of the pre-requisites of good governance is acknowledged as transparency in administration and, in fact, in public life as a whole. If the governance of a country is conducted openly and with the minimum of secrecy, the government can afford transparency in most of its activities. It is now universally accepted that the more the transparency the less the corruption.

So even the Berlin-based international body that exposes corruption and fights it is called Transparency International. It had in the 1990s held Pakistan as the second, third and fifth most corrupt country in the world in successive years according to the perception of foreign investors and other indicators.

To have real transparency in administration it is imperative that the media of the country is totally free. It is now accepted by enlightened circles that, as Amartya Sen’s book “Development as Freedom” says, that development in poor countries is essential for freedom and democracy, transparency is essential for the development to be comprehensive and truly beneficial to the masses. And to drive home that point the World Bank has brought out an impressive publication with the title “The Right to Tell - the role of mass media in economic development.” It deals with the issue comprehensively and provides case histories of the extent of media freedom in several countries, including Bangladesh. The book underscores the fact that real media freedom is a critical deterrent to corruption as well as gross inefficiency in public administration.

In a foreword to the book the president of the World Bank James Wolfensohn says: “Over 1.2 billion people live on less than a dollar a day. And many of these poor people not only suffer from physical and human deprivations but also lack voice in decisions that affect their lives. Moreover, corruption and weak governance corrode aid effectiveness.”

How to give voice to these deprived millions in each developing country? A truly free and responsive media can be helpful in this area. And that has to be a part of an open government not excessively cloaked in layers of excessive secrecy. And that has to be based on access to information to the people, political parties and the media.

During World War II, Drew Pearson whose columns used to appear in about 700 newspapers in the world exposed a great deal of corruption in the war administration of the Truman government. The US officials wanted him to be arrested to prevent him from interfering in the war efforts. Even President Truman used the harshest possible language against him but refused to arrest him, arguing he kept the conscience of many American officials clean. He said if Pearson was arrested, he would need 700 to 800 officials to do what he was doing. That holds good of the media with its investigative exposes in most developing countries.

On the other side there was the famous American ambassador to Russia Charles Bohllein who said the government and press were natural adversaries. What the government wanted to hide, the press wanted to expose. So the adversarial relationship would continue. So we cannot expect total harmonious relations between the two institutions. At best it could be a workable co-existence with each one performing its assigned role and doing the best it can.

If power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Lord Acton said, it is necessary for public institutions to watch the exercise of that power to rid it of its abuses and excesses. And that brings in the role of the media, which have to have access to information as a matter of right and as a political norm. The military government came up with the freedom of information ordinance avowedly to increase the access of the media to information about official activities. But the press as a whole has strongly disapproved of that. It has also condemned the new defamation ordinance as wholly unnecessary in the presence of other laws for the purpose.

The government released for publication the Hamoodur Rahman Report on the 1971 war that resulted in the loss of East Pakistan and surrender of our forces to India. But the report released after 30 years was not the total report. Parts of that were withheld needlessly.

Some parts of that report had been published earlier as well. We are told that in the 1970s the report could not be published as that could have affected our relations with friendly countries who did not rise to our expectations. But it was argued the real intention of the rulers was to prevent exposure of the failure of the army and the military leadership headed by Gen Yahya Khan. The report as released for publication upheld those suspicions.

Real access to information is very important. But that alone is not enough. We have seen plenty of examples of large scale corruption having been exposed but which remained unattended by the government or by the judiciary. The parliamentary system, too, did not follow those cases. The fact remains that If Congress in the US had not pursued exposure of corruption, as did the Parliament in Britain, there would have been far more corruption in those countries.

The National Accountability Bureau has dealt with only a part of corruption and was prevented from looking into the corruption in the armed forces and the judiciary, with the exception of Admiral Manzoor case.

In India Aroon Shourie, who has now become minister for privatization, was very effective when he came up with exposure of corruption cases in the 1990s, while the exposure by other journalists were not as much effective. Investigation by the rivals showed he came up with such exposures before the Parliament met and the Parliament took up such cases and sought remedies.

That is not our history in a country where there was no Parliament half of its life and when we have that it was under severe restraints in dealing with what are called sensitive institutions which seem to be too many in Pakistan depending on the kind of regime we have at a given time.

If we have an open government along with a truly free media and the two move in tandem to fight corruption and prevent waste or misuse of public resources, they can achieve great results. Today the most open government in the world is the American government. Its legislature in particular is free and open and holds the President to account when he slips up in a big way. The Senate approves appointment of all the key officials after proper scrutiny, looking into their past as well as current commitments. During the Clinton administration two women were rejected as attorney generals as they had employed illegal immigrants as domestic helpers. How the Senate Judicial Committee tried Clinton on charges of sexual misconduct is too well known.

Whenever a major bill comes before Congress, the committees of House of Representatives and the Senate hold open hearings and ask the experts to testify. As a result the best possible minds in the country get involved in such law-making.

We have a record of passing major constitutional amendments in minutes and passing too many bills in one day simply because the ruling party has the requisite majority in Parliament.

The Pakistan Senate instead of asking experts to testify on technical issues has four technocrat members from each province. And those technocrats can be Maulvis or lawyers who are even otherwise in plenty in the house.

We are told 300 ordinances were passed during the three years of military rule. Will they all be re-examined by the Parliament one after another before they are made regular laws or many of them will be simply ratified by Parliament now?

If our parliamentary system is to be effective the 30 or so standing committees should look into the working of each Division and make them serve efficiently. And they should hold open sittings which are accessible to the Press and the public. If instead the members of Parliament are given Rs 10 million each as development fund each year and they focus on spending that amount they will not be serving the country in the manner expected.

The key Public Accounts Committee should also hold its sittings openly and make them accessible to the Press in the manner suggested by H.U. Beg, who presided over the Ad Hoc PAC recently. Though as an official he was too committed to secrecy, he now realises the benefits of open sittings of PAC and exposing the massive corruption in the government, and not shield its officials from exposure after they had committed serious wrongs.

Official reports like the annual reports of the Auditor-General of Pakistan should be available to the public on payment. And they should be available not only in Islamabad but also in Karachi and other centres so that the political debates in the country could be truly informed ones.

The government has also to give up the practice of promulgating ordinances days before the Parliament meets and days after the session ends.

Such an open government cannot be a success unless the major political parties have their own research outfits. They have to look at the bills to come before Parliament and the manner it had passed the bills after some hasty amendments.

Of course, a real democracy is a participatory democracy and not the one in which the people at times vote once in five years. The contribution of the silent majority is often negative or neutral, and is not a dynamic one which the political leaders will take notice or respond to.

It is not enough if each Division has an official spokesman. He should be well informed and be accessible to the media in these days of increasing number of newspapers and TV channels.

And if there is to be far less of corruption there should be a far better public procurement system instead of ministries and divisions acquiring what they want in a hasty or clandestine manner. There should be less of gallop tenders and more of normal tenders for procuring supplies for government departments.

Overall, the extent of corruption and drop in waste of official resources would depend on the extent of open government and access to information, and the manner the government and political parties respond to exposure of corruption or waste of public funds.

State polls: unite or perish: LETTER FROM NEW DELHI

WILL Indian politics take a different turn in 2003? This question has become relevant today because of the BJP’s victory in Gujarat, where the contest was between secularism and anti-minority phobia. Bigotry won hands down.

Is Gujarat an aberration in an otherwise pluralistic polity? Is it a wake-up call for democracy? Or, is it a proof of the communalism that has seeped into the body politic of the country? The concern on this account is justified in and outside India because its image is that of a secular democratic country.

The problem is the BJP and other members of the Sangh parivar. Their hard-core analysis of the Gujarat election has confirmed their belief that the anti-Muslim agenda was the propelling force in the state polls. Naturally, the party reaffirmed its faith in Hindutva at its executive meeting in Delhi a few days ago.

Hostility towards the minorities has become the BJP’s creed. It believes that it can replicate the Gujarat model in other states. Godhra is its mascot. The hardheaded want to use the railway bogey’s replica in the five states that will be going to the polls later this year.

Whether the election commission can stop it as an unfair practice is yet to be seen. A blatant use of communal idiom is banned. The BJP knows this. Maybe, this is the reason why the party has already directed its attack at the commission so as to make it flinch from taking the correct and courageous stand it has been pursuing so far. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which seems to have taken charge of the BJP’s election campaign, as was seen in Gujarat, wants to force the issue.

Without waiting for the court’s verdict, it threatens to build the temple on the site where the Babri masjid stood before demolition. By vitiating the atmosphere, the VHP believes, it can propagate the Hindutva line. Therefore, the answer will be provided by the outcome of elections in the five states — Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi. Nagaland is also having elections this February. But it is not the battleground for Hindutva because the state’s population is Christian.

Hindus are in a preponderant majority in all the five states. The Muslim population does not average more than 10 per cent. But if Gujarat, with almost the same percentage of Muslims, could be turned into an anti-Muslim inferno, there is no reason why the same tactics will not be tried elsewhere. The BJP and other members of the Sangh parivar may repeat Gujarat as BJP president Venkaiah Naidu has announced.

That the five states are from the Hindi-speaking region may be a coincidence. But it can set a trend. However, constituted as India is, even a clean sweep by the BJP in all the Hindi-speaking states, including the five, in the general election 20 months away, does not give it a majority in parliament. The party will have to seek allies to get to the magic figure of 273 in the 545-member house.

The presence of the chief ministers from UP, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry in Ahmedabad at the time when Narendra Modi was anointed like a Maharaja gives an idea of the possible tie- ups. Mayawati, a dalit leader, can scare away the upper castes. The Brahmins are already set against the BJP. Caste politics tends to take precedence over communal politics in India. Again, Jayalalitha’s alliance with the BJP does not mean any tangible support. The south, like the east and the north-east, will be averse to the domination of the Hindi- speaking states.

Above all, it is too early to predict whether Mayawati and Jayalalitha would at all join hands with militant Hindu fanaticism. And even if they do, the question of how long the alliance will last would remain. The most important thing is whether their supporters will accept the BJP from their hearts.

Power is a big magnet. If George Fernandes, Nitish Kumar and Sharad Yadav, once big lights in secular ranks, could jettison their life-long beliefs for a berth in the central cabinet, the Mayawatis and the Jayalalithas could do likewise. But they would not want to be a part of the BJP’s furniture as George, Nitish and Sharad have become. Too much strident clamour of Hindutva — it will increase as the days go by — may scare away even Mayawati and Jayalalitha, let alone their supporters.

The strategy of the BJP is clear. It proposes to lead another National Democratic Alliance. At the same time, the party wants to beat the drum of Hindutva. As Deputy Prime Minsiter L.K. Advani put it, “We want the NDA’s agenda in one hand and the BJP’s in another.”

The Congress, which should be marshalling anti-Hindutva forces, is still far from active. Whether it is the right party to do the job is secondary. The first is: what is its strategy in the face of the open, blatant Hindutva challenge? The party does not give the feeling that it is fighting for the country’s ethos of secularism. It is taking too much time to regain its composure after Gujarat.

Somehow, the Congress conveys the impression that it needs nobody, and that all others need the party. True, it is the largest opposition party. But the challenge to secularism is too big for it to take it single-handed. In the absence of leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a collective effort should be made to string together all elements believing in our pluralistic society and composite culture. The cause is important, not who is in the limelight.

In Gujarat, the Congress lost 11 seats because the like- minded parties or individuals took away from it enough votes to make the BJP candidates victorious. This is going to be the opposition’s dilemma again. Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal are two examples. The Congress will go to any extent to win in these states. If they do not accommodate each other, their incoherent voices will not be able to drown the cry of Hindutva?

The difference between the BJP and the Congress is that the former favours a coalition before the polls, while the latter after the polls. The Congress has a genuine problem. It has a solid base in Andhra Pradesh against the Telugu Desam and against the communists in West Bengal. How does it square it up?

The BJP does not face this sort of problem because it has hardly any support in the states where its allies are strong. In fact, the party’s limited support helped, for example, the Telugu Desam to get a majority. That is the reason why Andhra Pradesh chief minister, Chandrababu Naidu, supported the BJP-led government at the centre whenever it faced the problem of proving the majority.

The question that neither the Congress nor its non-BJP opponents realize is that the Frankenstein of Hindutva now stalks the land and it is a matter of time that it will devour all secular forces. The primary job is to fight the monster. Perhaps the Congress, the Telugu Desam, the communists and Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party should mend their fences. This may help them have a joint strategy to fight communalism.

The economic situation and the law and order problem in the country are deteriorating so fast that the BJP will find it increasingly difficult to contain popular dissatisfaction. These two points can provide a common platform because the Hindutva appeal is primarily meant to divert people’s attention from the real problem of livelihood.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

Holding their hands out

ALL the Republican leaders are calling the Trent Lott fiasco a wakeup call for the party. They said they have to hold their hands out to African-Americans as never before.

I have many Republican friends who have received the wakeup.

One is Channing Mayfair, who called and said, “Do you know any African-Americans I can invite to my New Year’s party?”

“I have some African-American friends, but they’re busy. Besides, you never invited them in the past.”

“I have to keep the list small. That’s the American way.”

“Of course you do. But that doesn’t mean you’re not having trouble filling out your dance card.”

“I am not a racist. I’m for Equal Rights, low-cost housing, Welfare, unemployment benefits, a health plan, and equal education for every American regardless of race, color or creed.”

“That does sound like a wakeup call,” I said.

“We have to reach out to everyone and say, ‘Dude, come to the party.”’

“Let me ask you a question. Are you doing this because the African-Americans are a powerful voting bloc?”

“No, I’m doing it because I like African-Americans. I like my postman, I like my UPS man, and I like the waiter at the country club.”

“But you never invited any of them to a party before.”

“I did last week and they all said they were busy. They can come to any party I give — and my Republican friends say the same thing. We have to worry about the election in 2004.”

“Are you mad at Lott for his birthday remarks to Strom Thurmond?”

“Not really. He has apologized for his stupid toast.”

“But he caused a firestorm in the Republican Party,” I said.

Channing replied, “You win some and you lose some. That is what politics is all about. Now we have a doctor as our leader who has heart.”

“Well, if I hear of any people who want to come to your party I’ll let you know.”

“Please do. I want a New Year’s party this year made up of everyone, regardless of race, creed or religion.”

“Do you think the majority of Afro-Americans will come over to the Republican Party after you’ve done your mea culpa?”

“Of course they will. After all, we’re the party of Abe Lincoln.”—Dawn/Tribune Media Services

Funding of higher education

THE article on higher education by Ms Humeira Iqtidar (Dawn, December 5 and 6) was a deliberate attempt at distorting facts, confusing issues and using populist cliches to ensure that the status quo vis-a-vis higher education was not changed. This status quo sees Pakistan ranked at the level of sub-Saharan African universities in almost all indictors of not only the quality but also of the coverage of higher education.

The quality indicators include qualification of faculty (that is, the percentage holding Ph.D. degrees), number of research journals subscribed to by universities, number of M. Phil/PhD students, internet access, research publications, funded research projects, government funding per student and research financing available, etc. Indicators of coverage include the percentage of population pursuing higher education. These numbers are available from numerous government and international publications.

Pakistan has to accept responsibility for the current state of higher education and improve it. To progress, the status quo must be changed since it serves only to further the interest of a small elitist minority at the expense of the majority. It is this thought that led to the formation of the Task Force on Higher Education and the Study Group on Science and Technology. The conclusions of these bodies were presented to the president in January 2002 and he accepted the major recommendations and combined the two bodies to form the Steering Committee for Higher Education with a mandate to develop an implementation plan for the proposals.

Simultaneously, on the recommendation of the Task Force on Higher Education, the Higher Education Commission was as set up to exclusively cater to the needs of the higher education sector of Pakistan. Prof Dr Atta-ur-Rahman was named chairman of the commission having the rank of a federal minister. The mandate of the Steering Committed expired in September 2002, and its final report is expected shortly. Further development of higher education in Pakistan is the exclusive purview of the Higher Education Commission.

The first correction to be made here is that the creation of the HEC was accompanied by the dissolution of the University Grants Commission, and all employees of the University Grants Commission were absorbed into the Higher Education Commission. The HEC is an autonomous government body and is not staffed by any representative of any elitist university. In fact, the composition of the HEC and the UGC is identical, with the exception of the chairperson. Advertisements have been placed for additional personnel who will be hired on merit.

The Higher Education Commission has been set up to take on the this challenge and facilitate the development of universities of Pakistan to be world-class centres of education, research and development. A critical additional challenge is to vastly increase access to higher education so that our talented people are not denied avenues for personal and professional growth. Meeting these challenges will require dedicated hard work as well as vastly greater funds.

In the short time that the HEC has been in existence, it has already changed the landscape of higher education in Pakistan. A billion rupees of additional recurring and development funding are available this year. The development budget of universities has increased six-fold this year, and new schemes for scholarships, post-doctoral research, in-country Ph.D. research, library strengthening, etc., have been launched and will be enhanced in the coming months.

The Higher Education Commission has taken a categorical stand against privatizing higher education in Pakistan. Funding of the higher education sector is the responsibility of the government, and concrete steps need to be taken to reverse the current trends that see an ever-increasing financial burden being placed on students. The current state of funding of the higher education sector in Pakistan is that the government provides half the funds while the universities raise the remaining amount themselves through self-finance schemes, affiliation of colleges, examination fees, etc. It is this situation that the HEC would like to change. It does not support any increase in fees and, in fact, is working to secure significant additional funds for universities so that self-finance schemes are no longer required.

An efficient mechanism of governance and management of institutions is a necessary pre-requisite to development and reform of the higher education sector. To avoid conflict of interest, the body responsible for governance, policy making and accountability of the university management, should be entirely different to the body responsible for management of a university and execution of its affairs. This universally acknowledged principle of management is at the heart of the university restructuring ordinance.

The governing body proposed in the ordinance is structured to present a voice to all the stakeholders of the university, including the faculty, alumni, parents, academics, government and society in general. The management of the affairs of the university is to be handled by a body entirely composed of academic and administrative heads of the university bodies. A key change from current practice is that the mechanism for selection and removal of the vice-chancellor is specified so that the best person for the post is selected on the basis of merit alone, and removed only for due cause.

The ordinance contains no hidden privatization agenda, and on the contrary, limits the fee increases in any given year to 10 per cent — a feature that is missing from the current university acts. The objective of the ordinance is to help develop an environment to improve the quality of education and research in our universities.

The HEC intends to play its part in spearheading the building of a knowledge-based economy in Pakistan. People are the real assets of Pakistan. However, it is only through education that we can profit from this great asset. A well-educated graduate is the building block of a knowledge-based economy, and it is for this reason that the HEC is focusing on the issue of “quality” of higher education. The faculty is the key determinant of the quality of higher education, and it is therefore necessary to create programmes to significantly increase the number of faculty members holding a Ph.D. degree. It is understood here that while the holding of a Ph.D. degree by a faculty member does not guarantee quality, the lack of a Ph.D. does present a barrier to sustained provision of quality education.

A second major thrust of the HEC is the development of an infrastructure for higher education that will include improvements in the physical infrastructure, digital infrastructure and resource and support infrastructure such as libraries, etc.

Universities are distinguished from other centres of education by the fact that they are institutions that accrue knowledge, enhance it and disseminate it. Research is therefore an integral part of the mission of a university, and without it the institution may not be referred to as a university. Research is not limited in its domain and may be carried out to ascertain the truth in all its manifestations and domains of applicability. This research, when of sufficient standard, is published in journals of research published in various advanced countries of the modern world. These journals do not in general care about a person’s political affiliation, religion, caste or creed. There exists no global mafia controlling what may or may not be published.

To promote excellence in institutions of higher learning in Pakistan, and attract the best people to academia, the Higher Education Commission proposes the implementation of a tenure track system of faculty appointment at universities. The tenure track system is NOT a contract system of employment, and is in place in most major universities of the world as well as the HEJ Institute of Chemistry, Karachi University. It requires an initial probationary period of employment during which the performance in teaching and research of a faculty member is evaluated.

Successful completion of the probationary period leads to “tenure” or permanent employment on the rolls of the university faculty. The HEC is of the opinion that tenure is required to ensure academic freedom and economic security. Tenure is indispensable to the success of an institution in fulfilling its obligations to its students and to society.

The Higher Education Commission intends to work with the academic community for the socio-economic development of Pakistan. Universities in Pakistan are autonomous bodies, and the HEC will work to facilitate their development, help them develop linkages with industry, help them with attracting local and international research and development funds, advise them to ensure a proper balance between teaching and research, encourage, facilitate and support training programmes, workshops and symposia, and guide them in developing curricula responsive to the current and future needs of employers and society. It is hoped that the HEC will usher in a new era of social, cultural and economic development of Pakistan.

The writer is member (HRD), ministry of science and technology.