| 12 February 2005 | Saturday | 02 Muharram 1426 |
Coping with calamities
At the cost of quality
The political scene in the country remains as messy and confused as ever. A major new development has been the Jeddah meeting between Ms Benazir Bhutto/ Mr Asif Zardari and Mr Nawaz Sharif.
The two former prime ministers were said to have agreed to cooperate in seeking to restore the 1973 Constitution and working for free and fair elections. Reports that the two were due to meet had been circulating for some time; this is their first public encounter since 1998 and will be seen as an attempt to put aside the bitter past between them.
The reports from Jeddah do not seem quite in harmony with Shaikh Rashid Ahmed's assertion that the government is in constant touch with the PPP and that there is a possibility even of some seat adjustments with the party during the next election.
This will suggest that if negotiations have indeed been going on with the PPP, they have reached a fairly advanced stage. Where, then, do the Bhutto Sharif meeting decisions fit into all this? Or is the government statement about talks with the PPP simple dis information, designed to sow suspicion between the PML-N and the PPP and keep the MMA guessing?
Since we have never really worked a democratic political system, wheeling-and-dealing has held the field. Mr Nawaz Sharif has previously been visited by Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Qazi Hussain Ahmad, and it is also known that the ARD and the MMA sit most uneasily together.
The ARD says it is prepared to overlook the support extended by the MMA to the 17th Amendment, but more and more it appears likely that the PPP would rather cooperate with the PML-N than with the MMA, particularly in view of the latter's stubborn insistence on mixing up non-issues with the struggle for democracy.
The MMA's anti-Musharraf drive has failed to get going, and this too must figure somewhere in whatever calculations are being made in the Sharif and Bhutto camps.
While all this jostling goes on, the government keeps up a facade of a strong and stable government. But there are many who say that the official feelers being put out to the PML-N and the PPP give an indication of how weak the government really is and how anxious it is to move away from its dependence on the MMA.
The generals are confronted with an explosive situation in Balochistan, and the crisis of federalism of which Balochistan is one manifestation is felt in many other areas also.
The drive to establish a new relationship with India and the continuing threat of domestic terrorism and religious revivalism pose their own challenges. The government needs broad-based political support if it wants to stop floundering around in the deep end.
It will not be seen as a sign of weakness on its part if it tries to build a consensus by engaging in a dialogue with mainstream parties rather than persist in the folly of trying to marginalize them.
That in fact would be the rational course to adopt. But rationality has so often been a victim of posturing and braggadocio that any hope of a sensible settlement based on recent political developments must remain muted.
Coping with calamities
Nature has once again unleashed its fury in several parts of the country in the form of devastating snowstorms and downpours - the worst seen in over a decade. The exact toll of the dead is not yet known but was, at the time of writing, believed to be close to 70.
This figure includes the number of bodies recovered from Balochistan's Pasni area, inundated by the waters of the Shadi Kor dam that burst its banks as a result of torrential rains.
At least three villages in the area are known to be completely submerged and 300 to 400 people are unaccounted for. A similar state of chaos reigns in the snowbound northern areas where hundreds of families are stranded without adequate food and fuel supplies and remain cut off from the rest of the country.
The unfavourable weather conditions have made it difficult to mount a coordinated rescue mission that remains suspended in many parts. The fact that no department of the government is ready to take on the responsibility for relief work, and that victims have no idea whom to turn to in their hour of need, speaks volumes for our poor state of preparedness when dealing with natural calamities.
There is no doubt that immediate relief in the aftermath of disasters is crucial to survival. But the absence of a long-term strategy, aimed at preventive measures and a systematic procedure of rescue and rehabilitation, is being keenly felt.
Over the years, we have had our fair share of earthquakes, cyclones and other natural calamities. But, for reasons best known to our policymakers, we remain apathetic to the probability of future catastrophes, and have made few attempts to develop a coordinated action plan involving several government departments, each assigned a definite role in coping with disasters, and coming under one umbrella.
The least developed areas of the country, with little or no infrastructure, and where poverty is at its most grinding, have been the hardest hit. Disaster management will have to be taken more seriously from now on, especially if we are to stave off the dangerous consequences of climate change, caused by our own misuse of the environment.
At the cost of quality
Predictions in recent days by the heads of the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and Board of Investment that the telecom sector will see massive investment and expansion and that the number of mobile phones will double to 15 million by the end of 2005 should be good news for the industry and consumers alike.
In fact, the growth in the telecom sector is estimated to be such that the number of mobile phone connections is expected to increase fivefold in the next few years.
Increased investment in this sector and the entry of new companies will benefit consumers because of more choices, the use of state-of-the-art technology and reduced prices.
While consumers have gained in terms of reduced prices and connection charges, it has to be pointed out that the state regulator needs to do much more to ensure that mobile phone companies provide the services they advertise and do so in a fairly reliable and efficient manner.
Indeed, one of the primary responsibilities of any industry regulator, such as the PTA, is to prevent the creation of monopolies in the private sector and to check collusion between firms that could exploit consumers by arbitrarily fixing prices.
What has happened in the telecom sector, especially mobile phones, is that in a rush to enhance their market share and profits, firms have given far more connections than their networks can cope with.
The result is that quite often in the middle of a conversation a phone call gets disconnected, and this happens repeatedly, with the user left with no option but to keep on trying the number again and again.
The result, notwithstanding the reduced call charges introduced in recent months, is that the consumer ends up paying double or triple for the call because of the faulty service. Instead of making all kinds of tall claims, the PTA should respond to the numerous complaints made by users of low connectivity, incorrect billing and shoddy customer.