| 01 July 2004 | Thursday | 12 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425 |
All change and no change
Triumphs and tensions of globalization
A Fiscal responsibility law is to be introduced in the parliament soon to regulate foreign borrowing. The bill has been in the air for over two years and Mr Shaukat Aziz as finance minister is its prime mover.
It has also come because of the pressure from the IMF, World Bank, Asian Development and other donors to reduce the loans and keep a proper check on new borrowing. Earlier the impression was the fiscal responsibility law would limit public spending as a whole and set annual limits on borrowing.
And Mr Ashfaque Hasan Khan, economic adviser to the government was appointed director-general of the debt office in addition to his advisory functions. But as Mr Shaukat Aziz told the National Assembly while accepting amendments to the 2004-2005 budget, the law would regulate external borrowing.
But when the bill is presented before parliament its members, particularly those from the opposition, may demand it should regulate overall official borrowing, which a few years ago had crossed the 105 per cent of the GDP alarmingly, before slipping down below the 100 per cent level.
Now that the external borrowing has come down by over two billion dollars, in spite of additional borrowing, to 35.8 billion of the GDP and the interest payments too have gone down following the global trend, the domestic loans have shot up by Rs 576 billion since 1998-99.
These now stand at Rs 2,028 billion but the interest payments on that debt have gone down by Rs 50 billion to Rs 161.5 billion because of the fall in interest rates. The government is not upset by this very large debt as it does not have to repay it regularly.
It is more of a revolving door borrowing and repaying but the fact remains that Rs 161 billion is a lot of money and can be used for development projects, social sector development like education, public health, environmental reclamation and poverty relief.
The government may argue that much of such borrowing is for development and social sector programmes, like the record Rs. 202 billion public sector development programme for next year.
But most of that is funded through Rs 1256 billion to be raised through external borrowing and grants. And for a long time now a large part of the borrowing is meant for current consumption of the government as the late Dr Mahbubul Haq was protesting year after year.
It is hoped that when the bill comes before the parliament the members will insist on complete parliamentary control over official expenditure, annual borrowing and accumulation of debt, external and internal.
The current favourable external environment may not last forever. The purpose of having an annual budget is to specify the annual government spending and borrowing; but no government has been deterred by such checks, nor the ceiling on the debt which has never been specified in Pakistan. The budgetary limits have been regarded more as a recommendation than as inviolable limits.
As a result the government spent far in excess of the budget year after year and then got the excess spending approved by the parliament as a matter of routine. This year, for example, supplementary grants for Rs. 157 billion were passed by the National Assembly after the budget was passed following the rejection of all cut motions of the opposition within minutes.
Debt servicing has been given maximum supplementary grant of Rs 87 billion for pre-payment of the costly loans. The second grant was for defence for Rs 20.59 billion, and general administration was given Rs 7.24 billion more.
This year at least the high cost foreign loans and defence got the bulk of the additional spending; but usually they do not. And the large excess spending by all and sundry in the government is taken for granted by the opposition after the finance minister argues that the money had already been spent and it was useless crying over spilt milk.
The normal democratic practice for the government is to come up with a supplementary budget, explain the reasons why the government needs additional funding, as the president does in the US, get the Congressional sanction and then spend the money.
In Pakistan instead of a supplementary budget the government comes up at the end of the year with an omni bus demand for supplementary grants and the opposition helplessly votes for them or lets them pass, as yet another folly of the government with a long history.
Will the new fiscal responsibility law reverse all this and make the democratic budgetary practices the norm of the parliament? Mr Shaukat Aziz is familiar with all that in the US where he has spent a lot of time and can make that one of the reforms.
Not much time was allotted for the budget debate as the opposition is more interested in the political lapses of the government than the economic about which it is not usually well informed.
And it yet spent hours or days together working on 1,200 cut motions. And yet the budget debate ended three days earlier than the time allotted for it. All it took was for the government members to provoke the opposition on political grounds and it walked out giving an open field to the government to steam -roll the budget through.
So the cut motions were rolled into bunches and passed quick. We are told by the government the Senate recommendations would be accommodated in the budget. How? And what specific charges would result from that? It was all a hurriedly done job and the opposition unwittingly or as usual played into the hands of the government.
When it comes to the budget sanctioning the expenditure by the parliament is only a part of the job of the legislature. It has also to ensure that the money is spent in time and for the purpose for which it was allocated, efficiently and effectively. The subsequent tasks are those of the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly, which has to be an effective and assertive body which it has not been. For that matter the Assembly had for long period no PAC at all, and when it was there the officials were not very cooperative. So the reports of the auditors-general year after year was gathering dust and the culprits were at large.
As a result of such clumsy procedures, the Centre did not release to the provinces the funds allocated to them in time and the provinces did not release to the local bodies the funds earmarked for them.
We are now told that 73 per cent of the development funds earmarked for Balochistan were not used this year. This is the usual story. We are accustomed to seeing presidents, prime ministers and chief ministers visiting various places and making large announcement of developments funds.
The people of the area are delighted; but after many years we are told the funds never reached those areas. Gen Ziaul Haq was fond of making such lavish announcements. But most of the time the funds never reached such areas. Mr Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the then finance minister, used to ask him which of the many allocations that he had announced did he want to honour.
He used to specify a few of them. The funds were then assigned for such projects only. The fact was that his discretionary funds did not provide for such large spending. Nor did the national budget provide for that. But he loved making a speech wherever he went and hence made the announcements of large grants as the area did need such assistance.
A great deal of funds is spent on ceremonies for laying foundation stone of such projects with a large number of persons from the area visiting them. But after the ceremony that project never takes off. There have been cases of more than one foundation stone being laid for one project by different VVIPs.
Such ceremonies are becoming more and more costly now as a large number of intelligence officers have to be in such areas along with the requisite cops, depending on the status of the VVIPs. And the functions are getting more and more fancy and costly.
The late Nawab of Kalabagh was well known for telling his invitees that he would come to inaugurate projects completed and not for laying foundation stones. And that was a sensible move which prevented a lot of waste of money and time of the persons concerned.
If the opposition wants to help the poor and improve the economy and fight corruption it should give more time to the study of the economy. It should have economic cells within each party and such cells should cooperate with each other or coordinate their activities.
And they have to make a collective study of the budget each year, plan their budget debate strategy and move according to that, and not be provoked by the government's political strategy and walk out of the parliament or provincial assemblies too frequently.
Poverty reduction in a country in which one-third of the people live below the poverty line of a dollar a day is not an easy task. And it is not the task of the government alone. The opposition should try to rope in the private sector as well.
Nor can 7 to 8 per cent economic growth be sustained by the government or the country through an easy course. It needs a true national coalition with the opposition playing a realistic and active role.
But now the government is able to do what it wants in the parliament by provoking the opposition through a few words and getting rid of them from the parliamentary forum.
If the government would not listen to the logic of the opposition and its democratic demands, the answer is not to hand over the parliament to the government altogether without a real fight.
The opposition has to fight for every inch of the territory it wants, particularly in the economic field, instead of succumbing to the provocations of the government or its young members in the parliament who love seeing the opposition walking out following any altercations that breaks out all too easily.
The minimum that the opposition can do in a country where every one deploring excessive poverty is to hold a conference on an alternative economic system. Then again the opposition is likely to be divided between those who stand for Islamic economics with a total ban on interest and those who seek a secular economic order.
Clearly we do not have an easy way out of the economic problem and cannot agree on radical solutions which may be far more difficult to implement in actual practice. Eventually it involves the whole nation, and sacrifices by the rich and the powerful who have always resisted them.
All change and no change
The exit of Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali came as no surprise to anyone. Ever since he assumed office he was derided for being a puppet figure, someone wholly dependent on and subservient to his 'boss' President Musharraf.
Once 'the boss' decided he should go, it was only a question of when. But while Jamali's departure might not be a surprise, it is still a cause for serious concern.
First things first, though: why was such a pliant prime minister booted out of office? [Don't be fooled by the resignation speech: this was no voluntary exit.] The answer lies in a combination of Jamali's ineffectiveness and his making the fatal mistake of trying to assume a real power role - as opposed to the acting power role assigned to him.
The president was annoyed that his prime minister had failed to secure provincial agreement for a new National Finance Commission award. He was even more annoyed with his prime minister's assertions that he (Musharraf) would honour his commitment to give up the chief of army staff uniform by the end of the year.
In view of the fact that Musharraf's intention seems to be the precise opposite, presidential ire was understandable. Comments that no previous government had been able to complete its tenure, and that Jamali hoped he would be able to complete his, added to the discord.
With the boss unhappy, Jamali's only hope of survival lay in his PML (Q) party. But the so-called 'king's party' was never going to abandon its king for a joker - especially when NAB cases hang over so many of its elite. Jamali was openly dumped by the PML (Q): thereafter it was only a matter of time before he left.
EXIT JAMALI: enter Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain to be followed asap by Shaukat Aziz. Exit too the cabinet. In any other country in which the government abruptly steps down from power, in which a new interim prime minister is nominated and a new cabinet has yet to be nominated, one would expect at least transitional instability and a measure of uncertainty about the future.
Not Pakistan, though. There were no convulsions in the markets. No protests on the streets. Crucial talks with India over the Kashmir dispute and other sensitive issues continued apace, as if nothing had happened. [A comparable change of government in India would have led to the immediate recall of its delegation in Pakistan.] The country presented an almost boring picture of 'business as usual'.
Some (not very difficult to guess who) have taken this as a sign of political maturity: the country undergoing a peaceful transition of power, without violating constitutional provisions. 'How civilized we have become! - We can change rulers without bringing in the army!'
Such assessments are misleading, indeed misconstrued. For what the smooth transition to Aziz via Hussain shows, in fact, is the weakness of our political system: the sham that passes for democracy in this country.
In a true democracy it is the people who decide their rulers and when these are to be changed. In Pakistan such decisions are made by everyone but the people. Jamali's is a case in point.
He did not run in the October 2002 elections as a candidate for the post of prime minister. The PML (Q) and the president appointed him such without consulting the people.
Similarly, there were no calls from the public for Jamali to stand down. Nor was there any parliamentary vote of no confidence in his leadership. The decision to oust him was made, again, by Musharraf and Hussain without consulting the people.
And where is the people's will in the appointment of Shaukat Aziz? The powers that be will arrange for him to win a safe constituency: the powers that be will ensure he gets the necessary vote of confidence in the National Assembly. Where are the people? When do they get to voice their opinion?
They don't. For elections, the democratic process, have become reduced to little more than the icing on the cake in Pakistan. Decisions are made either prior to or after the elections take place: voting is just a necessary exercise to give the veneer of legitimacy to illegitimate decisions, the public extras on a stage where the real action takes place among a handful of principal actors. You and I don't choose who rules over us: we just get informed.
It is almost a knee-jerk response to blame the military (these days General Musharraf) for the many ills of Pakistani democracy. Musharraf and the military are, of course, blameworthy for at least some of the problems.
The latter's obsession with protecting its own interests, and the former's growing obsession with holding onto power have led to constant military interference in and manipulation of the electoral process.
That, in turn, has undermined the very institutions on which any democracy has to stand - an independent Electoral Commission, Parliament, and so on. But there are many others who must share the blame: most notable among them our political class.
For a group of people far removed from all semblance of democracy - How many hold internal elections? How many practise issue-and-performance-based as opposed to patronage politics? How many seek office for anything but personal gain? - They spend an awful lot of time moaning about it.
Democracy for most of our political class is nothing more than a handy tool to serve political ends: when they need to support the government (as the PML-Q does these days) it is conveniently abandoned, when they need to attack it (as the MMA and ARD do these days) it is conveniently taken up.
The same politicians today berating Musharraf for his undemocratic actions would tomorrow happily go along with a similar charade if it furthered their political ambitions.
It is a rare politician indeed who has any principles in Pakistan: a rare one who can resist the lure of office and wealth. This weakness, this greed, plays into the hands of the military.
They have a ready source of political prostitutes willing to go along with their democratic farces. As that most common-sensical of sayings goes: 'Taali donoon haathon se bajti hai'.
The president is happy; the leading parliamentary party is happy; we are soon to have an extremely able, intelligent, amenable-to-the-West technocrat as our prime minister; there has been no revolutionary instability on the streets. What is there to complain about?
In the short-term, probably not a lot. But in the long-term, much. The ouster of Zafarullah Khan Jamali is a confirmation of the fact that the president holds the strings of power in Pakistan.
Prior to this week, one could perhaps have fooled oneself that we have at least partial democracy: that, given time, democratic institutions could strengthen in Pakistan. No longer: the farce is totally exposed - we are a military dictatorship in everything but name.
The problem with military dictatorships, or one-man shows (a more diplomatic expression) - even those doing good (as this one arguably is) - lies in their sustainability.
Determined by and dependent on the will of one man, policies made in such an environment are perpetually subject to rollback and revision. Should the architect of national policy (domestic and, most emphatically, foreign) disappear from the scene, the much-vaunted stability we enjoy today will go out of the window too.
Musharraf's decision to replace Jamali with Shaukat Aziz undermines all these principles. That is why it augurs so ill for our long-term future.
iffatidris2000@yahoo.co.uk.
Triumphs and tensions of globalization
Human history is dominated by a forward thrust. From ignorance to information, from repression to participation, from authoritarianism to democracy.
Globalization and modernization are also historic. From the Silk Route to the Spice Trade, from military conquest to economic control, from mass-human migration to intercontinental trans-plantation of seeds, crops, plants, animals.
We have already witnessed linguistic globalization: Spanish into South America, French into West Africa, English into Asia. We have seen religious globalization in several instances in all of history.
As we look at the socio-psychological and political tensions in Asian and European societies arising from modernization under the rules of globalization, we should acknowledge the unprecedented advantages and benefits that have come through contemporary modernization and globalization in the 20th century, and which now continue in the 21st century.
For example: If philanthropy can take place today which transcends geo-political, racial and linguistic differences to deliver life-saving medicines, human organs and aid, across tens of thousands of miles with no connection between giver and taker, then we are passing through a great era of humanitarian globalization, in which compassion gives culture a new and profound dignity.
If access to radio, print media, cinema, TV and the internet are indicators of mass communication, then we are in yet another unprecedented era of globalization of instant, rapid communication, embracing and enabling millions and billions of people to share voices and pictures.
If creativity expressed on a large scale through a wide variety of ways is an indicator of modernization, we are benefiting from the enormous and diverse output of tens of millions of people who own and operate their own still cameras and digital cameras, video recorders, audio cassette recorders, cell-phones and computers in addition to being able to use the traditional means of painting, music, writing on paper, dances and craftsmanship to produce a huge volume of recorded words, images, sounds, thoughts and themes. We could call this: the globalization of (documented) mass creativity.
If participation in processes and systems such as voting for parliaments or protesting on the streets are indicators of common, world-wide patterns of empowerment, then we are moving through an unrivalled period of democratic globalization in which the principle of "one person-one vote" has been accepted by almost the whole world as a basic norm.
If better living standards through mass immunization against diseases, new vaccinations, access to health care, availability of washing machines, motor-cycles, cars, electricity, air-conditioners and hundreds of other items that make life more convenient for hundreds of millions of people are measures of internationally shared aspects of life, we are benefiting from an extra-ordinary period of social and infrastructural globalization.
If travel and tourism on a mass scale are indicators of modernization, we are also moving through a unique phase of history when hundreds of millions of people travel throughout the year over vast distances, spending brief periods in other places and returning to their original homes to make possible a phenomenon that can be called "globalization of mobility".
Contrary to the image and perception of Pakistan in most overseas countries, the truth is that Pakistani society has a remarkable capacity to accept diversity, accept modernization, accept globalization while continuing, in some vital respects also to accept static conventions and repressive practices.
The socio-psychological and political tensions may include the following: Globalization of parts of culture (aspects of ways of life, use of technology, media choices) while other parts of culture remain the same: some positively, some negatively.
Thus, every single human being, regardless of his literacy or income, caste or religion today faces the challenge of coping with the extraordinary speed and sweep of segmented change.
There are tensions between components of the same faith e.g. as in sectarianism and there are tensions between sectors / institutions e.g. the religious clergy and conservatives on one hand, and the military and the civil sector on the other hand.
The times also produce strange paradoxes: the neo-conservatives of Texas and Washington D.C. become the ultra-moderns in Saudi Arabia as they prescribe democracy in the Middle-East!
Tension also arises when modernization brings its own share of repression. For instance, democracy produces unilateralism and hegemony, veto powers at the UN and brute military force in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thus, tradition has come to represent, in some contexts, the virtues of individual dignity and identity, of particularity, of resistance to being swallowed by globalization.
Responses include adoption of new physical trends e.g. the hijab or headscarf for women or beards for men, increased alienation from the West and continuation of violent practices.
There is a curious co-existence between modernization and medieavalism. There is continuation of repressive and violent practices as part of the re-assertion of identity perceived to be threatened by modernization and globalization.
For example, the continued practice of "karo-kari" in parts of Sindh by which a woman is killed by her husband or her brother to punish suspected sexual relations with another man.
Such instances continue to take place in a country that is the scene of a truly peaceful social revolution. In 2001, about 35,000 women were elected as local government councillors out of a total of about 100,000 councillors. Similarly, the federal and provincial legislatures elected in 2002 include hundreds of women elected on 17 per cent seats reserved for women.
Pakistan also enjoys freedom of expression at a level far higher than several countries in Asia which are, ironically, far more advanced than Pakistan in socio-economic development. Four broad facets of modernization and globalization also need to be taken into account while considering the socio-psychological aspects.
These are: The globalization of the economy and of foreign policy e.g. the war against terror and the membership in the coalition of countries fighting it, without globalization of good governance, corruption and inefficiency continue at the lower mass level despite notable success achieved by President Musharraf in Pakistan against corruption at the top.
The challenge of supporting the development of pluralism in a federation (and of sub-pluralism within a province or in a city), even as a country like ours tries to evolve a new identity after suffering disintegration in 1971.
Regional economic co-operation between politically adversarial countries such as Pakistan and India is improving as a result of the pressure of contemporary globalization and thus, regionalization occurs as a step towards increased globalization.
There are tensions that exist within an individual's mind, within a single family, in a community. For instance: in a neighbourhood or a religious sect, in an organization or a territory. There are tensions that arise from living in a city and tensions that relate to living in a rural area.
There is the decline of language skills even as communication spreads, as is evident in poor reading and writing skills. There is the quest for an abiding identity along with the quest for justice as in Palestine and Kashmir.
There is the popularization of issues, profound as well as trivial. Trivialization of content is particularly evident in some of the content on TV. Both the triumphs and the tensions of globalization require vigilance and reformative response by civil society and governments.
The writer is a former senator and information minister.