| 04 November 2004 | Thursday | 20 Ramazan 1425 |
Death of a friend
Girl child: not a liability
In a shift in the power policy, the government has reportedly decided to adjust power project agreements to reflect official priorities and to nurture a competitive energy market with the aim of protecting the interest of the consumers. Yet this overall long-term investment security package appears designed to provide maximum comfort to the power producers. This includes long-term contracts for fuel supply and power purchase in addition to explicit and binding criteria of tariff rate.
The objective is to ensure internationally accepted returns to investors. Apparently, under its policy to produce cheaper hyrdo-electric power and to reduce the high cost of imported fuel, the government has decided to change the terms of the agreement on oil and gas-based power projects to 15-20 years from the earlier stipulated period of 25-30 years. But the hydro power and coal-based projects would be eligible for long-term agreements of 25 and 35 years, respectively.
To spare the investors the delays and discomfort of bureaucratic hassles, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has been asked to accept official guarantees issued to the private power producers to honour agreements on implementation and power purchase arrangements. Nepra's approval for tariff would be sought before the issue of letter of support (LoS) by the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB), and issue of licence.
Nepra has been advised to immediately finalize and provide a tariff formula and announce explicit and binding criteria for tariff so as to remove any element of uncertainty. While the government's move to eliminate hassles and to provide maximum security to the investors would be welcomed, one hopes that it has drawn useful lessons from the experience of the 1994 policy on assured returns on investment, the implications of sovereign guarantees and the establishment on fuel-based power plants in a volatile international oil market and its impact on the country's trade deficit.
The coming into operation of the new projects will no doubt enhance the supply of power to cater to the needs of a growing economy, particularly enhancing exports. But given the conditions obtaining in the country, specially the failure of the military-run utilities to reduce line losses and power theft to any significant extent, a stable supply can only be ensured with a two-way approach of increasing production and conserving energy. A lot of extravagant use of electricity can be seen in illuminations at private ceremonies and commercial establishments.
The government can persuade domestic and commercial users through a media campaign to conserve energy. The erratic supply of electricity can be attributed to shortages resulting from heavy line losses as well as fluctuating hydro-electric power production depending on climatic cycles of drought and rainfall. Some of the losses are inevitable in an over-centralized transmission system which needs to be tackled.
The issue of a colossal loss of electricity through thefts and transmission losses going up to 40 per cent in case of the KESC is too serious to be ignored and needs to be tackled with appropriate corrective steps. A sound energy policy has to be based on increasing production, cutting transmission losses and ensuring efficient distribution and use of power.
Death of a friend
Pakistan has been saddened by the passing away of one of its friends, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan, the man who founded the United Arab Emirates and turned the desert federation into a booming oil-kingdom with one of the world's highest per capita incomes. As its president since the UAE's founding in 1971, Sheikh Zayed had been its guide and leader.
He reinforced ties among the seven emirates by far-sighted policies that included subsidies to the oil-less units. In foreign affairs, he followed a low-key policy and maintained support to the Palestinian cause without jeopardizing UAE's ties with the US. Sheikh Zayed followed a culturally liberal policy that attracted tourists from all over the world.
The UAE under him had taken another major step towards liberalism on Monday when a woman was appointed as minister for economy and planning. His administrative abilities turned the UAE into a haven of peace with exemplary law and order. This also attracted skilled and trained manpower from all over the world, and helped turn the UAE into an engine of growth in the Gulf region.
Shaikh Zayed had a special place in his heart for Pakistan, which he visited regularly, and where he financed no less than 117 welfare projects. These included hospitals in Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Rahimyar Khan, a research centre at the Karachi University and a modern airport at Rahimyar Khan. The petrodollars sent by hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis who work in the UAE have made a major contribution to this country's development, especially in the rural areas.
His death has created no constitutional crisis, for the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Makhtoum, who is the UAE's vice-president and prime minister, has taken over as acting president. Sheikh Zayed's son, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahayan, is expected to become the UAE's president when the federal council representing the seven emirates elects him as head of state. Let us hope that relations between Pakistan and the UAE under Sheikh Zayed's successor will continue to be as friendly and close as they are today.
Girl child: not a liability
The fact that 98 per cent of infants abandoned outside Edhi centres all over the country are females is a sad commentary on a society that is unwilling to shun attitudes that regard daughters as a liability to the family. According to the Edhi Foundation, approximately 250 newborns, almost all females, are left in cradles installed outside its centres located in various parts of the country.
In a sign of an even more alarming trend, the foundation retrieves a number of dead infants - again most of them females and killed in cold blood or left to die from hunger and cold - from open sewers and garbage dumps. No doubt, gender should not matter where infants are abandoned or disposed of in this grisly manner. But the fact that the victims are mainly females is cause for alarm. It invokes memories of a medieval past where female infanticide was an accepted ritual, and indicates that mindsets have not changed much since then.
The girl child today is among the hardest hit in an essentially patriarchal society where the family's investment in education and health benefits the son, who is looked upon as a future breadwinner and as an insurance against economic hardship in old age.
Strangely oblivious to these realities are our intellectuals and social activists, who have made few attempts to change hidebound notions like these that are causing enormous damage to the fabric of national life. If they want to see Pakistan as a progressive state, where the role of women as workers and homemakers is given due respect, they will have to work hard to remove the antediluvian notions that blur reality.
They can only do so by focusing first on the girl child and exposing the societal flaws that have kept her from gaining access to that which is her due. It would follow, quite naturally, that a nation that is sensitized to the needs of the girl child would be in a better position to value its women, who after all, constitute half the population and who play such a crucial role in the family and in social well-being.