| April 26, 2003 | Saturday | Safar 23, 1424 |
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Recovery of Iraqi artefacts
Trivial pursuits
A GOOD part of the non-performing loans (NPL) of the banks is directly related to sick units. So when the Corporate and Industrial Restructuring Corporation (CIRC) and the Sick Industries Revival Committee (SIRC) were constituted some two years ago, it was hoped that the incidence of loan defaults would go down considerably in response to suitable actions taken by these two organizations for the revival of sick units. But this appears to have proved a misplaced hope. Two years down the line, things have only deteriorated on the NPL front as well as in the matter of revival of sick units. This year the NPL has gone up to Rs. 109 billion from Rs. 99 billion last year showing an increase of nine per cent. If the NPL assets acquired by the CIRC are also included, the total NPL would go up to Rs. 174 billion as on September 2002. In percentage terms, the NPL of private banks is being estimated at 10.29 per cent, that of the foreign banks at 6.13 per cent and the nationalized commercial banks’ at 27.24 per cent of the total advances amounting to Rs. 408 billion.
On the other hand, the impact of industrial restructuring has been negligible. Information gathered in respect of 103 projects shows that only four projects with a total outstanding loan of Rs. 802 million, which were earlier closed down, are now operational. There appears to be little ‘revival’. The causes of defaults have neither been addressed nor resolved. Post-rescheduling monitoring has been left to banks, which generally do not take notice of these and react only in case of future defaults in repayment. In case of successful rescheduling of the debt, a project is classified as ‘revived’, irrespective of whether it is operational or not at the time of application by the borrower. In case of no resolution, the project is classified as ‘not revived’, even though already operational.
All these issues have been considered seriously in a recent World Bank report raising doubts about the performance with regard to revival of the sick units. It has also identified a number of grey areas in the functioning and success of CIRC and SIRC. The projects processed by the SIRC have shown no increment in value. No record is kept of financial or operational details of a project after revival. Even so, CIRC’s mandate includes only a fraction of the total NPL and even if it completes its mandate, there will be a considerable amount of NPL left over with the financial institutions. So far the CIRC has acquired cases of Rs. 55 billion only and made sales of two billion rupees. The World Bank, therefore, feels that in its present form, CIRC cannot be expected to deal with a substantial part of the stock of NPL in the public sector financial institutions and that the stock of the NPL with the financial institutions would in fact increase in the future. At the present rate, future settlement or sales of cases will take longer because of the legal and other complexities involved. All this must serve as a wake-up call for the government to consider what to do next. If the sickness is allowed to persist in the industrial sector with good money chasing the bad, the present success in exports and revenue collections would quickly turn into bad dreams. It is, therefore, imperative that in the next budget the government takes more meaningful and more practical steps to stop the rot in the industrial sector.
THE hunt for the recovery of stolen Iraqi artefacts has gained momentum after the US faced harsh criticism for allowing that country’s historical treasures to be stolen and vandalized by looters earlier this month. The global anger over the stealing of rare Iraqi relics, books and documents has led to a state of alert at all major ports of entry around the world. Interpol has officially alerted the police and customs authorities, museums and auction houses in 181 member countries against the smuggling and sale of the stolen Iraqi treasures. Unesco, for its part, has announced plans to send a fact-finding mission to Iraq to investigate the matter and to make arrangements for the recovery of the stolen artefacts. Italy has already pledged one million dollars towards the cost of recovery and restoration efforts and many other affluent countries are expected to follow suit.
Surprisingly, the US, whose occupying forces in Baghdad and Mosul were legally and morally responsible to protect Iraq’s historical and cultural treasures, has not pledged any funds for Unesco’s recovery efforts. This is in spite of the fact that an estimated 60 per cent of the world’s total legal and illegal purchases of ancient treasures take place in the US. Instead, cases of an odd recovery or two of stolen Iraqi paintings and other objects d’art from returning US marines and media personnel have been reported in the international press.
The plunder of Iraq’s rich historical and cultural treasures amounts to a plunder of the common human heritage considering that the stolen artefacts, books and documents dated back to the dawn of civilization. It is important that Unesco takes full charge of the recovery campaign and stays with the job until all or most of the stolen artefacts have been recovered and restored to Iraq.
WHILE moving a resolution seeking to introduce shalwar-kameez as a uniform for both students and teachers in the province’s schools, an MMA MPA added a sentence saying that wearing shirts and trousers was “un-Islamic”. Mercifully, the opposition reacted promptly to this with one ANP legislator pointing to a portrait of the Quaid in the house in which the Father of the Nation was wearing a suit. He took umbrage at the mover’s extraordinary suggestion, contending that if his notion were to be accepted, the portrait of the Quaid would need to be taken down for showing the leader inappropriately dressed. The challenge was not accepted and after a heated debate and a walkout by the opposition, the resolution was passed, along with the controversial sentence. Later, though, the province’s senior minister tabled an amendment and the contentious reference was deleted.
Those who believe that wearing a trouser and a shirt is somehow un-Islamic may well be echoing the obscurantist notions and ideas of the Taliban because nowhere else in the Islamic world, not even in theocratic Iran, such narrow interpretations of the dress code are in vogue. In fact, men in much of the Islamic world, from Egypt to Indonesia, commonly wear this attire without attracting any disapproval from either fellow Muslims or religious scholars. That no eyebrows are raised when a man wears such clothes is only natural because they are not even remotely violative of the dress code of any culture or religion. Surely, the NWFP government has other, more pressing issues and problems to deal with than debating in the assembly whether trousers and shirts are un-Islamic. The people of the province need hospitals, schools, universities, better roads, improved communication facilities and opportunities for jobs and certainly do not need to be told by some legislative members that their clothes are not in conformity with the accepted dress code.