| November 7, 2003 | Friday | Ramazan 11, 1424 |
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Meat price see-saw
PTCL’s mixed bag
THE unveiling of Afghanistan’s new draft constitution in Kabul the other day brings that country one step closer to fulfilling the agenda set for it in Bonn two years ago. If all goes according to the plan, the grand Afghan council of elders, the Loya Jirga, can meet and deliberate on the provisions of the draft in December. Once approved by the jirga, the new constitution can set the stage for the first general election to be held in June 2004. President Hamid Karzai had assigned the task of framing Afghanistan’s future constitution to a team of 35 legal experts in November last year. It solicited views from a cross section of Afghans in all districts of the country through a questionnaire specially designed to gauge public opinion on the fundamental features of the future framework for the country’s governance. Those unable to write recorded their responses on audio tapes. Thus, the draft constitution can be said to reflect an approximation of opinion on the needed Basic Law. The draft seeks to establish a presidential form of government headed by a directly elected president and a bi-cameral parliament. The lower house of parliament will be directly elected while the upper house will comprise partially elected and partially nominated members.
Now that the Afghans are about to have a constitutional framework of their own, it is important for the international community to come forward and fulfil the pledges of help it gave at the Bonn conference. Afghanistan needs moral, political and financial support and sustained involvement in helping it rebuild itself and lay the foundations of a democratic system and gradually acquire the characteristics of civil society. Two long and devastating decades of war, civil war and tribal feuds have left the country and the few institutions it had shattered. The political aberration in the form of Taliban rule and their obscurantist ways made things infinitely worse. Afghanistan under President Karzai’s interim administration is still struggling to pull itself out of the debris of long years of anarchy and chaos — but not with much success. There still remains an enormous amount of cleaning up to do in a country where the writ of the government does not extend beyond the capital. The warlords controlling key provinces in the northern and southern regions and promoting opium production and trafficking must be disarmed and their self-assumed authority dismantled. Then there is the question of eliminating down the remnants of Al Qaeda, which the Americans believe are still hiding in southern Afghanistan. Their hosts and patrons, the ousted Taliban, also need to be neutralized.
These are daunting tasks challenges requiring sustained efforts, money and political will which the Afghan government seriously lacks. Moreover, the task of cleaning up the mess of the past and the reconstruction of the country’s infrastructure and institutions will have to be done simultaneously. The international community must help the Afghans by broadening the scope and mandate of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in order for it to secure cities and districts outside Kabul, and by making available expertise and funds Afghanistan needs to stand back on its feet. The proposed constitution is after all a framework of governance for the country and not a nostrum for the many ills Afghanistan is suffering from. These will have to be addressed quickly as a precondition for constitutionalism to take root.
THE Karachi nazim’s refusal to endorse an agreement on meat prices made by his deputy and the city’s butchers deserves to be welcomed. In the nazim’s absence, the naib nazim had agreed to an increase of Rs 20 per kilogram for beef and mutton as demanded by the city’s striking meat sellers. However, perhaps realizing the public mood on the issue, the city’s district coordination officer refused to go along and issue a notification. On his return from an overseas trip, the nazim held a meeting on Wednesday and came to the judicious conclusion that the butchers’ demand for a sizable increase in meat prices was unjustified and there must be resisted. However, the meat sellers have been told that their genuine grievances will be looked into but only after Eid. Meanwhile, meat will have to be sold at the prices set by the city government.
Wednesday’s developments have also revealed the real motives behind the meat sellers’ strike. After the nazim’s refusal, the butchers argued that the prices were unrealistically low and that people were willing to buy meat for even Rs 200 a kilo. Clearly, only the affluent can afford such an exorbitant price, so there should now be no doubts about where the interests of the butchers lie. The other ploy the meat sellers used was to present a counter proposal, allowing them to sell mutton at the higher price in return for beef at the price set by the city government. This, too, clearly shows that their motive was profiteering and not the high cost of animals which they cited as the main reason for their demand for an upward revision of prices. In any case, the decision not to negotiate any further with the butchers for the present is a correct one, and sets a rare precedent of a civic authority acting in defence of public interest. It is heartening to see a majority of consumers rallying to take a stand on an issue that directly affects them. Perhaps, some might now even be convinced that the heavens will not fall if red meat is not eaten for some time. How many can afford beef or mutton on a regular basis at even half of the present prices?
PTCL’s announcement the other day of g reduction in line rent, installation charges and local call rates at night is, generally speaking, welcome. However, the claim made by the information and technology minister that the proposals, to be implemented from the first of next month, will provide “maximum relief” to telephone users calls for closer examination. A reduction in line rent was in any case a long overdue measure which will benefit who have smaller monthly bills. As for the reduction in installation charges in urban and rural areas, though a step in the right direction, it too has not been done for entirely altruistic reasons. For one, Pakistan needs to see a significant rise in its teledensity rate to catch up with many others even among developing countries, and the reduction will prove helpful in that direction. Besides, by reducing the cost of acquiring a new connection, PTCL should benefit because more customers would mean increased revenues in the long run.
The other part of the minister’s announcement deals with local call charges. A few years back, the PTCL provided a big damper for its consumers in the form of multimetering on local calls. According to this, a new call is charged after every five minutes during a local call. From December 1, this will change so that a new call will be charged after every 10 minutes. Again, a good decision prima facie but what restricts the scope of this benefit is the rider that the reduction is only for calls made during off-peak hours, from ten at night to seven the next morning. Again, the reduction seems to be designed in such a way so as not to drastically affect PTCL’s revenues since the average duration of local calls might well increase disproportionately, or even rise. If the PTCL really wants to provide “maximum relief” to phone users then it should not restrict the lower charge for local calls to just the night-time hours or better still do away with multimetering altogether. After all, the greatest demand for local calls is during the day.