| 13 September 2004 | Monday | 27 Rajab 1425 |
Power breakdown
Raising more revenue
A US-sponsored draft resolution on Sudan has met with considerable opposition from China, Pakistan and other countries in the 15-member UN Security Council. Expressing its reservations about the proposed resolution, that calls for sanctions on the sale of Sudanese oil and a UN inquiry to determine whether the western region of Darfur was witnessing a genocide, Pakistan has said that this would only serve to "make things more difficult".
As a permanent member of the Security Council, China has the right to veto any resolution that it considers ill-advised. It has said that the draft needs revision as in its present form it is likely to complicate matters instead of resolving them.
States in favour of the resolution would do well to reflect on the concerns expressed by China and Pakistan. The fact that up to 50,000 people have died and another one million displaced in Sudan as a result of the 19-month old conflict between ethnic African rebels and the government-backed Arab Janjaweed militia, is enough to establish that a humanitarian crisis is raging in Darfur.
To underline the seriousness of the tragedy in terms of semantics is a waste of time that could be better used in dealing with other, more pressing aspects of the crisis.
No doubt, a UN resolution declaring the tragedy as "genocide" would increase the pressure on Sudan to step up efforts directed at stopping the massacre of thousands of its people.
However, considering its past inaction in this area, especially its failure to implement a previous, time-bound UN resolution asking the government to disarm the Janjaweed, it is highly unlikely that calling the Darfur situation a genocide will make any substantive difference.
Also, there is little political wisdom in the US suggestion of imposing oil sanctions on Sudan. It is a pity that after witnessing the hardships suffered by millions of Iraqis as a result of more than a decade of UN-imposed sanctions, Washington remains insensitive to the consequences of a terrible humanitarian problem that such an action can create.
Today, mired as it is in an apparently unending war in Iraq, America is feeling the wrath of a people subjected to years of hunger, disease and lack of even basic amenities.
However, one provision in the draft that deserves favourable consideration is the call to increase the number and mandate of the 300 African Union troops stationed in Sudan.
This is a crisis that threatens to spill over into other African countries, such as Chad to which a huge number of Sudanese refugees have already fled. Having learned a lesson from the mass killings and displacements of the Rwanda-Burundi tragedy in 1994, an extended African monitoring mission, aided by UN peacekeepers, would be in the best possible position to understand the complexities of the crisis and help in resolving it.
Other means of dealing with the situation also need to be explored. Among them is more aid for the uprooted Sudanese. Many aid agencies have complained of lack of funds and of the Sudanese government's role in blocking these.
Finally, the government in Khartoum should demonstrate its commitment to disarm the marauders and give aid workers easy access to the affected areas. It would also do well to hold a peace conference in the region proposed by the president earlier this year.
Power breakdown
The massive power breakdown that blacked out half of Karachi on Friday night has exposed the tottering state of the KESC and its inept management. It happened after a major power generating plant broke down in the evening and lasted well past midnight.
Notwithstanding the fact that evenings in Karachi have become comparatively cool these days, millions of residents suffered, the prolonged breakdown badly affecting their evening routines and disrupting work in the city's commercial centres, hospitals and so on.
Not only that, the losses to the city's industrial and commercial establishments must have been very high. The fact is that electricity breakdowns are nothing new in Karachi which has often to face the problem of frequent and prolonged power failure.
Over the years, the KESC has become a household name for its gross inefficiencies at various levels of its operations, including customer service. Besides, recently it been mired in a controversy for asking its subscribers to change their meters, saying that the older ones were artificially slower.
Most subscribers, however, do not buy this story and say that the move is designed by the KESC to overcharge them. To make matters worse, the utility has one of the highest rates of transmission and distribution losses in the world and not much has changed on that account since its top-level management was handed over to the army.
Friday's breakdown is an indictment of the incompetence of the KESC's methods of dealing with a crisis situation. If the management of an essential service in any other country performed as poorly as this one, it would have been sacked a long time ago. But here failures and breakdowns are easily explained away, excuses given and promises - only to be broken.
The KESC management has been saying for a number of years that the distribution network and infrastructure need a thorough overhaul but it has little to show for its concern in terms of efforts to obtain or generate the funds needed for such a revamp.
Unless that is done, unless the KESC goes after those who steal electricity and takes action against its employees who facilitate thefts, unless it becomes an efficient organization, the city and its economic and commercial establishments will continue to be held hostage to the whims and caprices of the KESC.
Raising more revenue
Asking the Central Board of Revenue to raise additional revenue of Rs 10 billion during the current fiscal year and not introduce any new taxes to do this puts the CBR to a hard test.
Following the shortfall from the collection of the petroleum development levy (PDL), it is expected that revenue collection will suffer a shortfall if remedial steps are not taken.
One hopes the CBR makes up this shortfall by minimizing tax evasion. The tax collection target for 2004-05 is Rs580 billion which will now go up by Rs 10 billion. PDL collections will be much lower than the targeted Rs47.5 billion set for the year.
As a first step, the CBR must be vigilant to the problem of under-reporting of earnings by tax payers. Strict compliance by the tax authorities can ensure that the tendency is kept to the minimum.
The other problem is outright evasion. In this, the government needs to take steps to widen the tax base. The CBR should be given the responsibility of raising the number of income tax payers in the country from 1.7 million to three million, within a reasonable time.
However, there are gaps and loopholes in the tax system that need to be filled. As a first step, the government needs to introduce legislation to make the CBR autonomous.
Its management should have the power to hire, fire or transfer its own staff and design its own policies. It is only then that the gaps and loopholes in the tax system can be plugged. What is needed is an integrated approach to making the CBR more alert, efficient and powerful.