| 26 December 2004 | Sunday | 13 Ziqa'ad 1425 |
The sale of KSEW
Deaths in Larkana
That the leader of the opposition has accepted the prime minister's invitation to meet him is good news. Beyond that, one would like to keep one's fingers crossed. The meeting is scheduled to take place on the eve of Dec 31 - the date by which President Pervez Musharraf must take a decision on his uniform. For the MMA, the uniform question has become the be-all and end-all of its politics. If the president does not shed his uniform, the MMA would like to launch the "second phase" of its agitation against the government.
The other opposition parties, including the PPP and PML-N, too are against the president retaining his uniform. Yet, the ARD and MMA have failed to agree on a common strategy. Much to the annoyance of the MMA, the ARD insists that the former has contributed to the legitimization of the present military-dominated system. The MMA voted for the 17th Amendment, and that regrettably wasn't much of an achievement.
The MMA later claimed - and rightly - that it was on the insistence of this religious grouping that the government agreed to make the National Security Council a statutory body rather than a constitutional one. This is correct, but by focussing only on the NSC and some other clauses, the MMA allowed the freak that is the Legal Framework Order to become part of the Constitution.
The MMA also wants the elections to be held in 2007 - a stance that coincides with the government's. Obviously, the MMA controls two provinces and would not risk the uncertainties of a mid-term election. Here its position conflicts with that of the ARD.
More than two years after the general election in October 2002, the political system shows no signs of settling down. There is perpetual confrontation between the government and the opposition, and vital national problems seem to have been thrown overboard. Ignoring poverty - whose elimination does not seem to be one of the MMA's priorities - the problems facing the nation are gargantuan. They include the monster of terrorism, the precarious law and order situation, the lack of consensus on building a new dam and on the NFC award, and Balochistan's grievances.
The government has failed to develop a national consensus on any of these issues. It is cutting a lonely furrow and, in the process, has failed to make progress on any of these issues. More regrettably, the government seems to believe in talking only to the MMA. This has served to alienate the two mainstream parties, the PPP and PML-N.
Let us hope that the talks between Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Mr Shaukat Aziz will produce results. But this will only be a marginal success, for no national consensus can emerge if the PPP and PML-N are kept out. The mere "shedding" of uniform will not turn Pakistan into a democracy. The NSC itself is a negation of democratic principles, because it has subordinated the people's representatives to the generals. What is needed is a movement towards democracy.
This will mean not only turning the NSC into an advisory body but also abolishing Clause 58-2(b). More important, the government and the opposition must pledge to work for the people's welfare instead of frittering away their energies on running after power or holding on to it.
The sale of KSEW
It is unfortunate that the Karachi Shipyard and Engineering Works (KSEW) is now up for grabs. One wonders which foreign investor would be interested in buying an entity described a few months back by a senior government official as a "white elephant." For all practical purposes, the government has washed its hands of the KSEW. The fate of hundreds of employees hangs in balance as the organization looks for a buyer.
The government has been unable to come up with any plan to revitalize this important institution. Set up in early 1950s as a project of the PIDC, the KSEW commenced its operation in 1956 and was incorporated as a public limited company in 1957. Since then, it has built over 430 vessels of different types and sizes, not only for the country but also for a number of other nations, including China, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Iran, UAE and Belgium.
A number of its vessels are still at sea with the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC). More recently, the KSEW worked on the Agosta submarines that the Pakistan Navy had obtained from France. And yet, the organization posted losses and is now proposed to be sold.
There are a number of reasons why the KSEW has performed badly in the past decade or so. These are problems that plague other public sector organizations as well. When vibrant and profitable entities were nationalized in the 1970s little thought was paid to running them efficiently. The KSEW, for example, was deprived of the professional management needed to run it. It was unable to win contracts and bring in the required business for its survival.
As a result, the KSEW accumulated losses of over one billion rupees. It was also deprived of business from the public sector agencies in the shipping industry like the PNSC, which prefered foreign shipyards for its work. If such issues had been taken into account and tackled, there was no reason why the KSEW could not return to profitability, thereby saving a vital national institution.
Deaths in Larkana
The deaths of four people protesting against the creation of a new district in clashes with the police in a town in the interior of Sindh is most unfortunate. Much of the blame for the tragedy rests on the shoulders of the provincial government because of the manner in which it has gone about creating new districts out of the old ones.
Since the middle of last week, residents of the town of Qambar in Larkana district, where the four died, were agitating against the Sindh government's decision which, according to them, had ignored Qambar and instead made a nearby town the new district headquarters.
The re-districting has been opposed by the PPPP on the grounds that it unfairly seeks to bifurcate Larkana district, Benazir Bhutto's home constituency, while others with larger populations, like Hyderabad, have been left intact.
Without going into the merits of these claims and the government's defence, it has to be noted that the latter acted with undue haste in announcing the new districts earlier this month. Such a major decision should have been taken only after having a public debate on the need for new districts and the proper forum for that would have been the provincial assembly.
The government could have said that it was considering creating new districts in Sindh and invited comments from the public. At any rate, since the districts involved are mostly represented by the opposition assembly members, the government should have taken their view on the matter before making any decision.
A high-level inquiry to punish those responsible for the deaths of the four men should be set up. And, difficult as it might seem for the incumbent chief minister, who tends to take a confrontational posture vis-a-vis his political opponents, his government needs to open up a line of communication with the opposition on this issue to defuse tensions.