| August 16, 2003 | Saturday | Jumadi-us-Sani 17, 1424 |
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Local bodies and provinces
A little less noise
THE Greek tanker Tasman Spirit carrying over 60,000 tonnes of crude oil, which ran aground off Karachi on July 27, broke apart on Thursday, flooding a long stretch of coastline with a layer of stifling oil. Residents of the beachfront areas closest to the spill were reported to be feeling the effects of the pollution; the damage to sea life and marine vegetation would be known as the days unfold. This is the worst disaster of its kind faced by Pakistan, and it has again underlined the woeful lack of preparedness to deal with such emergencies as well as the ingrained lack of concern that characterizes the official attitude to people’s welfare. A briefing on the sorry episode was due to be held on Friday, but some of the facts already reported tell their own tale.
It took the ship 18 days to break up. The effort during this period consisted mainly of trying to lighten its load and refloat it. Some success was achieved in the first endeavour, but the possibility that the tanker would split was apparently grossly underestimated. The assessment seemed to be that the ship would not break (or would take much longer to do so) and that it would be possible to safely unload its cargo of oil. The initial leakages were downplayed. On July 4, Federal Communications Minister, Ahmad Ali had said: “Thank God, everything is under control and the ship is intact, and above all there is no oil leakage.” Perhaps the minister would now like to eat his words. On Thursday, the communications secretary said after the tanker came apart that the “worst was over”, as if the breaking up of the ship had taken care of an unpleasant task confronting the authorities. The secretary asserted that the ship’s pipes and valves had been properly sealed or plugged to avoid further leakages, and the spill so far had caused only “cosmetic damage” to the beaches.
The entire affair literally stinks. The circumstances leading to the grounding of the tanker are even now unclear. It is said the ship was older than vessels used to carry sensitive cargo should be. There was squally weather on the day of the incident, but it is also alleged that the pilot or pilots on board the tanker missed the tide and tried to steer through water that was not deep enough to allow safe berthing. Then follows what look like attempts to downplay the incident and a series of apparent miscalculations on the part of the authorities. It may make sense not to have a permanent salvage or cleaning establishment at the ports because of the mercifully low incidence of tanker or ship groundings and spills, but the absence of contingency plans that would automatically be implemented when an emergency occurs cannot be explained away by glib talk. We have seen how whenever a calamity strikes — floods, heavy rains, fires, earthquakes, sudden pollution — we seem totally unprepared to handle it and the first official instinct is to minimize it. Lackadaisical relief and rescue attempts are subsequently undertaken and wishy-washy inquiries held that bring us no closer to either pinpointing the blame or marking out precautionary steps for the future. Maybe, the Tasman Spirit episode will drive home into the thick skulls of our officialdom the simple truth that it is always better to be alarmed than to be apathetic.
PRESIDENT Pervez Musharraf has called a meeting to take note of the tensions that exist between Sindh’s provincial government and the local body set-up that came into being as a result of elections in July 2001. The meeting will discuss other issues, too, — like getting the “stakeholders” to contribute financially to the rehabilitation of Karachi’s infrastructure that has taken a battering in the recent rains. The stand-off between two tiers of elected government has long-term implications for the working of the political system. Of course the problem is not confined to Sindh alone although the conflict here exists in a severe form because of the incompatibility between the Muttahida Qaumi Movement which plays an important role in the provincial government and the MMA which controls the Karachi city government. In the North-Western Frontier Province, too, the provincial government controlled by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal does not get along well with the Nazims, whose majority does not belong to the MMA. In fact, the Nazims went public with their complaint during the billboard “defacing” controversy and accused the MMA government of interfering with their work. The MMA government, in turn, accused the federal government of inciting the Nazims against the provincial government.
The question of managing the equation between the provinces and the local bodies has acquired a new aspect with the institution of the present local body set-up by the military government. The political classes which have traditionally controlled the provinces have never allowed an elective local body system to put down roots. They have been resentful of an institution which can become an additional power centre in a province. Provincial elites have rather found it convenient to let a local self-government minister lord it over all the local bodies in a province. This absence of a local body system at the grass roots level has always been exploited by authoritarians, both civil and military. Moreover, it has been a major source of weakness of the democratic order whenever it has been allowed to exist.
In our constitutional scheme local self-government is a provincial subject. The traditional power elites in the provinces understandably resent the “constitutional” protection that has been granted to the new local body set-up. They are right in the technical sense: the federation has no right to order the affairs of the local bodies which fall under provincial jurisdiction. But they are wrong in the political sense: they cannot and should not be allowed to snuff out local autonomy in the name of provincial rights. What we need is a compromise between the federal government and the opposition which guarantees cooperative co-existence between provinces and the newly elected local bodies. Allowing elective officials to handle local matters and issues in the interest of the local communities does not impinge upon or detract from provincial autonomy. In fact the autonomy of the provinces becomes stronger and richer if the local communities’ wishes and aspirations are honoured and the provincial governments are seen to be genuinely aiding the local bodies in solving the problems and redressing the grievances of their constituents.
CAN’T we have a little less noisy independence day? To be specific, must citizens suffer the ear-splitting noise created by youngsters who remove their motorcycles’ silencers? The youngsters’ spirit was laudable. They seemed to be enjoying every bit of the occasion. Disregarding every rule in the textbook of traffic management, they drove their vehicles the way they wished, weaving through stationary and moving traffic, through the narrow space between cars, along the strip of roads between vehicles and sidewalks, between two bumpers, and through every imaginable bit of space available. But nobody seems to have told them that removing their two-wheelers’ silencers is not exactly the best way of celebrating independence. Surprisingly, public buildings were draped with coloured lights. This went against the prime minister’s declaration that the day would be observed with simplicity because of the flood havoc in the country. Government officials obviously either violated the prime minister’s order or perhaps had never heard about it. In any case, the contrast between the celebrations and flood misery was sharp.