For energy and employment

It is heartening to note that since April last year, the Executive Committee of the National Council (ECNEC) has approved, in four different batches, over 100 new projects costing a total of as much as Rs500 billion. More heartening is the fact that the fourth batch of 33 projects costing over Rs185 billion which was approved on Wednesday reflects the government's concern for water and energy sectors and for generating employment on a sizable scale through new projects in these sectors.

Water shortage is, indeed, assuming nightmarish proportions. We have to conserve whatever we have and, at the same time, use it as efficiently as possible with a minimum of waste. To our lasting misfortune we have for long neglected calls for building small and big storage dams. Climatic changes have now confronted us with long and frequent spells of drought situations.

To top it all, more than half of the stock of the limited stored water leaks and seeps out of our dilapidated irrigation system. So, while it is essential to plan projects for water storage and execute them at the earliest, we must at the same time take in hand projects for rehabilitation and modernization of the entire irrigation system, from barrages to canals to channels.

If the rehabilitation work is undertaken in a sequential manner over a period of 15-20 years, we could even be able to finance more than 75 per cent of the work with the resources generated by the preceding rehabilitated sectors, reducing the impact on the budget to almost zero by the time the entire project is completed. Energy is another major worry of our generation. With the passage of time we seem to be running short of this most important development propeller.

It is, therefore, necessary that we start investing in finding new energy sources, expanding power production capacity and setting up a cost-effective distribution and transmission system. The importance of increased public sector spending on education and health cannot be overemphasized. But instead of making frequent announcements of grandiose plans for these sectors, it is important to concentrate more on implementing whatever plans are announced and in good time too.

Our biggest asset is our manpower. But this has turned into our biggest burden as the majority of our population is illiterate, unskilled and its productivity is marred not only by a serious lack of education but also by the widespread problem malnourishment and lack of health care.

Above all, the planners should always design their development projects, no matter in which sector, in a manner that creates opportunities for employment for skilled and unskilled manpower. This is the only way to reduce poverty. Also the wages should be structured in such a way as to allow the majority to have a decent living.

There was a time when consumerism was a hated term. But experience has shown that a well-orchestrated consumerism adds to overall growth and expands the economy at a faster pace, spreading middle class prosperity and reducing poverty. Indeed, it is consumerism that propels the private sector to invest.

Regulating medicines

The revelation that most medicines sold in Pakistan are never clinically tested inside the country is extremely worrying. Some medical experts are of the opinion that approval by foreign drug control agencies (such as America's Food and Drug Administration) is sufficient since these bodies have the technical expertise to certify new drugs, and clinical tests here will be expensive.

However, there are others who believe that differences in diet, environment and lifestyles warrant the holding of clinical trials of medicines in Pakistan prior to their sale. Despite these dangers, these drugs are sold to the unsuspecting public without any kind of prior testing. America's FDA might be extremely good at what it does, but its approval for a particular medicine should logically be valid only for sale in America.

How the health ministry can justify foreign approval to allow sale of foreign drugs in Pakistan is beyond comprehension. This also perhaps explains why medicines discontinued in foreign countries for long- and short-term adverse effects are sold freely in Pakistan.

Given that this country has a thriving local manufacturing market in medicines, a consumer base which generally is not very aware of the effects of various medicines, and also considering that a high percentage of medicines turn out to be spurious, there is great need for an effective regulatory system. By having such a system we would also be listening to the advice of the World Health Organization which has strongly advocated the establishment of "science-based systems" and epidemiological studies (on medicines) to improve patients' safety.

We do have drugs inspectors and a bureaucracy in the ministry of health but they hardly do the job, and their role is open to manipulation and influence by pharmaceutical firms. Pakistan needs the establishment of an autonomous drug control authority that is independent of the health ministry and where power rests primarily in the hands of health and medical professionals.

One important additional reason why this needs to be done in Pakistan is the common use of indigenously produced herbal and homeopathic drugs. Many of these contain ingredients like steroids which can be potentially very damaging.

A sop for illegal immigrants

President George Bush's proposed plan to give limited amnesty to an estimated eight million illegal foreign workers - 69 per cent of them Hispanics - in the US is billed largely as an attempt to net the Hispanic vote in the forthcoming election. The plan calls for allowing the workers to live and work legally in the US for an initial period of three years. If passed by Congress into law, it would require the beneficiaries to seek a further extension of their work permits after three years, provided they can prove that Americans do not need the jobs they may be doing.

This very condition in the proposed plan has come in for a lot of criticism by illegal workers' representatives and rights groups. Thus, the general impression is that amnesty granted on such terms amounts to exploiting the Hispanic vote in an election year, and that it offers no lasting solution to the problem of illegal immigration.

According to the US census bureau, Hispanic immigrants now outnumber African Americans and are the fastest growing minority in America. Indeed, the figures from the 2000 census confirm that white Americans, at 44 per cent of the population, have become a minority in 100 of America's largest cities. Blacks, once the largest minority, now have a population of 38.3 million, while the Hispanics account for nearly 39 million in a total population of 280 million.

Inner-cities in America - now home largely to non-white minorities - have long been the hotbed of crime and poverty, compelling large sections of prosperous Americans to live in relatively safer suburbs. In the post-9/11 months, while the homeland security department has hounded illegal immigrants belonging to Muslim countries, the clean-up of America's inner-cities has been left unattended. The vast majority of illegal immigrants in big cities comprises non-Muslims and their undocumented status adds to the pressure on the civic infrastructures of these cities.

President Bush's latest amnesty plan may help document this majority and make it easy for the Republicans to bag the Hispanic vote in the process, but it will not serve to improve the economic or social condition of immigrant workers or tackle the problem of illegal immigration.