| 08 February 2004 | Sunday | 16 Zilhaj 1424 |
Dr Khan's public confession
Problems of the lower judiciary
Mobilink billing system
Need for policy institutions
Educational reforms
Education in private universities
Menace of encroachers
Plot prices
Shutting eyes to reality
Ombudsmen
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It is regrettable that small investors who subscribed for shares of the OGDCL a few months back have been taken for a ride. The shares were offered for subscription from November 10 to 14, 2003. The minimum shares offered to a single applicant were 1,000 at the premium price of Rs32 a share.
Pinning high hopes on this government-owned organization, people subscribed for its shares even in the names of their kith and kin. In most cases the main investor gave the CDC participant name and that of his sub-account/house account number as required in the application for certificates of units. For two months there has been no official information whether the subscribers' applications have been accepted, though it is generally thought that all applications for 1,000 shares should have been accepted because the subscription money has not been refunded to the applicants.
After a two-month delay, delivery of shares was started on January 9, 2004, to the successful shareholders. But it was shocking to know that many shareholders who were not regular investors and had mentioned the CDC participant ID and the sub-account/house account numbers of other investors had been denied the delivery of shares under the pretext that they had not mentioned the group account number on their applications.
In the recently-offered number of public subscriptions, no such fuss was created and shares were deposited in the relevant sub-accounts as were mentioned on the respective application forms. The mention of sub-account was protected for the shareholders as long as they were pleased to refer such sub-account numbers in their applications.
Thus, in all such cases where CDC participant's name and ID were stated on the application forms, finding out the group number of the participant and depositing the scripts under such group number should not have been a problem. Instead of protecting the interest of small shareholders and saving them from any potential loss, the SECP and the managing director of the KSE have announced that in all such cases where applicants have used CDS accounts of other people, the shares will be issued in physical form.
The predicament that small investors now face is that many such investors sold their shares in anticipation of delivery of shares being received by them smoothly, which was a normal business decision of the investors if they did so. But the hitch created by the authorities forced the shareholders to square their positions in the first clearing of the OGDCL being unable to give delivery of shares.
As such their genuine sale has been converted into short sale and they have been trapped into paying differential between the selling price and the prevailing price which is on the higher side or may go up even further in the present circumstances when many people have been rendered handicapped to sell their shares.
It is likely that to force the shareholders to meet the formalities and legalities, the shareholders' investment will remain stuck up for another month or so, and by the time they will receive the delivery of shares, the price of shares will have been pushed downwards to make the matter even worse for the investors.
The authorities concerned, including the ministry of finance and the Privatization Commission, should ensure that shares are urgently deposited in the respective accounts as requested by each applicant, and the first clearing time is extended until shares in question have been delivered - this to stop harassment of the small investors.
ASAD ALI SHEIKH
Karachi
Dr Khan's public confession
The nuclear secrets' scandal has taken the nation by surprise. It would be interesting now to see whether those who were responsible for safeguarding these national assets during the time of the alleged sell-out of nuclear technology will also be brought to justice or at least charged appropriately.
What's evident from this whole situation is that either the Pakistani intelligence agencies both civil and military were so incompetent that they failed to detect such a great leak of dangerous secrets or that elements within were involved.
Has Dr A.Q. Khan chosen to be the scapegoat to cover up a much wider scandal involving not just the military top brass but also the political leadership ruling during the years when he allegedly transferred nuclear technology? Could it be true that Nawaz Sharif's business empire benefited from such monies or Asif Zardari made off with more than his infamous 10 per cent share through these deals?
Today, the Pakistani nation has been shamed. One of our top scientists has admitted to such an act and, to add insult to injury, this was done for personal financial gain. Perhaps a transfer of nuclear technology on the basis of helping other like-minded nations and to ease off some pressure from the West would have been more acceptable.
Once again, someone Pakistanis trusted and cherished has let them down. They need to brace themselves for potential future embarrassments at the hand of nuclear watchdogs and the western nations.
DR SHAAZ MAHBOOB
Uxbridge, Greater London, UK
(2)
When Dr A.Q. Khan had already said that everything had been done at his behest, there was no reason to further go on and deny the involvement of the government. This clearly shows that his address was drafted to make it sure that the establishment was exonerated.
At this point in time we should not take the facts as they are being portrayed in the media. We should analyze the situation thoroughly before developing any malice against our scientists.
I want to assure the scientists that in the eyes of those who read between the lines, their reverence has not dropped by even an inch. I can only hope that a time will come when the real facts are publicly exposed.
EQBAL AHMAD
Madison, WI., USA
Problems of the lower judiciary
It is regrettable that the government seems oblivious to all legitimate concerns of the lower judiciary as regards their poor service conditions. For instance, up to the rank of additional sessions judge, judges of the lower courts have to perform their duties in small, packed and suffocated courtrooms, with no provision of official transportation and little chances of getting official accommodation, in addition to very low pay scales.
It is a common perception among the members of legal fraternity that judges of the lower courts are dissatisfied and are not committed to their jobs. This is why people have lost faith in the judiciary. As people want their cases to be decided speedily with proper application of mind, the judges in order to decide cases expeditiously need better service conditions and realistic pay scales.
No incentives are offered to the lower judiciary for ensuring speedy disposal of cases. So long as the government keeps the lower judiciary underpaid, overworked and less privileged, litigants will continue to suffer from the practice of unnecessary adjournments. To end their suffering it is incumbent upon the government to provide them with basic facilities like proper courtrooms, transportation, accommodation and security.
This is the only way to hold them responsible for delay in deciding cases, otherwise judges can rightly blame the system for not providing them with enough support which is necessarily required to effectively curtail the number of pending cases. It is time the government addressed this key issue as the Asian Development Bank has provided substantial assistance to it under an Access to Justice Programme, which is aimed at improving the judicial systems in all developing countries of Asia.
ABDUL REHMAN
Lahore
Mobilink billing system
With reference to the letter by Mr Aijaz Ali Mangi published in your esteemed newspaper on January 23, we would like to clarify that deductions against a number are always charged as per our published tariffs. Mobilink has a state-of-the-art billing system to ensure this, but if any error occurs, it is immediately rectified and necessary adjustments are made in the customer's account.
Please note that when a new scratch card is loaded, 10 per cent tax is deducted instantly as per the instructions of the government of Pakistan. The government also requires us to charge an additional 15 per cent CED on usage, i.e. calls/SMS and all other charged services, and we are, therefore, obliged to deduct this amount and deposit it with the government. We may add that missed calls are never charged.
As regards longer SMS messages, please note that an SMS message up to 160 characters is considered a single message, and so anything exceeding this limit will be considered a multiple message. This is an international standard and followed by all the mobile service providers.
The same is the case with picture messages that may be charged as multiple messages (depending on the size of the picture/logo) since the amount of data that needs to be sent via the network is much higher. Finally, an additional three rupees per outgoing message is charged for SMS sent to international numbers, and nothing extra is charged on messages sent to other operators within Pakistan.
Mobilink stands ready to assist its customers in every way.
HAMID FAROOQ
Executive Vice President, Pakistan Mobile Communications Pvt Ltd (MOBILINK), Islamabad
Need for policy institutions
It seems Pakistan is always embroiled in some international issue, the latest being nuclear proliferation. As a nation it should be of grave concern to us that we are usually at the receiving end. It seems like this problem has always been there, and I believe it will continue to be there as long we follow "one-person" policies.
From the times of Liaquat Ali Khan to General Ayub, Z. A. Bhutto, General Ziaul Haq, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and now General Pervez Musharraf, we have been continuing to be led by personal motives of totalitarians. For the betterment of Pakistan we need to change that and do it fast.
We cannot leave it on democracy alone because parliament has never been fully independent and is unlikely to be so in the near future.
Something that Pakistan desperately needs is independent think-tanks and public policy institutes along the lines of the Brooking institute, CATO and RAND. We need the best and brightest among us to independently and objectively address the most important issues, define current and long-term issues and give policy alternatives of best handling them. One-person shows have continued to lead us through slippery slopes of destruction, and we should not let this happen again.
We should seriously ponder this issue. If we want to survive as a nation, we need long-term strategic policy institutes just as much as we need schools and health facilities.
AYESHA ATHER
Missoula, MT., USA
Educational reforms
Two contrasting backgrounds to the whole crisis of the present educational reforms in our country must be seen, without which the grave issue of the impact of these reforms cannot be understood. On the one hand we must see how technology influences and changes social perspectives in a society at large, and on the other we have to consider the contribution of social sciences to giving human society a direction.
Technology is no doubt an inevitable means of development of a society. However, in the present global perspective, we see that overemphasis on the significance of technology leads to what I call "technochratization" of human society. By this, I mean that human values are transformed into "instrumental values" in all aspects of human existence. This indirectly originates a drastic process of de-humanization of a society, where men and women are mostly taken as a mere means for the propagation of commercial and industrial processes. This also de-emphasizes the essential status of man as an individual person with basic human rights and choices for his self-development.
In contrast, within an educated society, social sciences have developed to the level of "scientifically -oriented disciplines of knowledge". Intensive research in social sciences focuses on the emancipation of human life rather than subversion of it under any mechanical process of natural or technological complexities. Social sciences aim at explanation, on scientific grounds, of the problematic areas of societal malfunctioning at large. They also search for solution of problems through peaceful and rational methodology.
However, the irrational and conflicting play of social forces, leading to war and destruction, designed and enhanced through technological advancements of sophisticated weapons of mass destruction, frequently disrupts this rational process of solving problems.
Social sciences work for the development of social consciousness that promotes maximum tolerance, adaptability, understanding, collective workability, humanization, expansion of mental horizons and creativity that encompass the intra-societal and inter-societal interactions.
Nevertheless, we have seen that technology can also become the most effective means of making weapons of mass destruction and a threat to the human civilization as a whole. We must not forget that Internet was originally designed for effective communication by the American army. This shows that a balance is vital between the technology and social sciences. Imbalance between them leads to a worldly chaos out of control of any one nation on the globe.
Z. H.BABER
Karachi
Education in private universities
I am an undergraduate final year student of the Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi. I have some questions concerning our university.
- We pay Rs70,000 to Rs80,000 per annum to the university as tuition fee but do not get quality education at any level. Why?
- Those who have resources/money seek help from outside the campus to supplement their knowledge/expertise, and thus are doing well. But those with limited resources have to depend entirely on the education quality of the university which is rather ill-equipped. Why?
- Also a large fund is given to the university by individual citizens and the government, but little of it is utilized for the betterment of the university. Why?
- Unfortunately, our computer science department has no teacher who possesses a PhD degree. Mostly, teachers are fresh graduates or doing master's programmes in the evening programme of this university. Why is this so?
Our batch (2001) has 550 students and will be leaving the university in December 2004, but only a few of us will be able to get jobs. The government should form a team to survey private universities and lay before the public its findings in the greater interest of the nation.
A STUDENT
Karachi
Menace of encroachers
This has reference to a news item (January 27) in which the Karachi nazim said at the foundation-stone laying ceremony of the Quaidabad flyover "that encroachment on the city government land would be considered a police cognizable act, and section 144 CrPC has been imposed".
But the situation in Surjani Town, Sector L-1, Shadabad, is to the contrary as the land of the city government which has been lying idle for a long time has already been utilized free of cost by bus bodymakers. Now when these commercial plots have been auctioned, most encroachers are not willing to leave. Rather those who have moved out have shifted to valuable commercial ground opposite the present site.
I urge to the authorities concerned to take prompt action to protect the law and the interest of the purchaser.
M. AZHAR SHEIKH
Karachi
Plot prices
I would like to draw the attention of the higher-ups of the Defence Housing Authority, Karachi, about an ugly game being played by the real estate agents in the DHA. No genuine buyer can even think of buying a plot in the DHA as every half hour the prices of the plots are being raised by these brokers.
Every broker is holding 30 to 50 plots on token money and they are artificially increasing the prices of the plots. They are even not willing to prepare the sale deed of the actual price. The sale deed is prepared at 10 per cent of the actual price and they are forcing the genuine buyer to declare the same in their returns.
Ninety-eight per cent of the trading of these plots is undeclared. The government's move regarding documented economy is not working at all in these deals.
I request the authorities concerned to seriously look into the matter and stop this ugly game so that the middle-class people could also think of living in the posh localities of the city.
UMER IQBAL
Karachi
Shutting eyes to reality
The Saarc declaration of January 6 appears a verbatim copy of the Convention of the World Health Organization. When you talk of "affordable" health care, you are shutting your eyes to reality. The fact is that a majority of the people in Pakistan live in poverty. So, health care is not available to them.
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation should recommend to WHO to shift its emphasis from affordable to free health care for all as a basic right, particularly in emergencies.
It is also interesting that some of the Saarc countries like Pakistan have been coupled with the Middle East in the WHO set-up. As far as WHO is concerned, Saarc should be a separate entity. The Saarc countries have similar environments and similar diseases.
ZAFAR OMER
Lahore
Ombudsmen
The Sindh Local Government Ordinance provides for appointment of an ombudsman in every district of the province to entertain public complaints relating to mismanagement, misconduct and inefficiency at district level as regards public grievances which are not entertainable by the Sindh ombudsman.
The relevant provision proposes a committee /commission, consisting of the chief justice of the Sindh High Court, the provincial ombudsman, etc., for appointing district ombudsmen. However, it is very shocking and surprising that the provincial government has not yet taken any measures for the appointment of district ombudsmen.
The governor of Sindh and the president of Pakistan should take serious notice of this lapse and inefficiency on the part of the relevant authorities and do the needful.
HIRANAD MOHANDAS
Mirpurkhas
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