| 24 April 2005 | Sunday | 14 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1426 |
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Managing PIA
Environmental tribunals
PAEC affairs
HBFC relief package
BJP leader
‘A woman in their lives’
Woman prayer leader
DHA football park
Royal wedding
PQA pension dues
Minimum balance
Nazim’s tree record
Auto sector
THIS newspaper published four government-originated news items in 10 days’ time (w.e.f. April 3) about the extremism prevalent in our society and the necessity of enlightened moderation for the people. At times such calls appear to be a case of conversion, if not patriotism. In all probability, the objectives cannot be achieved unless the differences in perception between the government and the people are reconciled.
Have our rulers ever taken us into confidence about the basic details of their programme enabling us to shun extremism and adopt enlightened moderation? Have they taken any interest in our anxious queries that are published in newspaper articles, editorials and letters? I take this opportunity to reproduce some of them:
— Is extremism an absolute or a variable vice which can differ from man to man, society to society (even in the same country), nation to nation depending on their cultural background, level of education and economic standards? Under the circumstances, will not public loyalty to faith look like extremism to those who are not or less inclined to their religions? And also can’t simple indifference to religion altogether be translated as enlightened moderation?
— Is our enlightened moderation a part of the US reforms of Muslim world? “We need an Islamic reformation”, so said the architect of the Iraq war Paul Wolfowitz (Dawn, Feb 20, 2003). Does not this idea carry a “holier than thou” concept? Should not reforms be accompanied by visible and meaningful changes in the foreign policies of key western countries? Are the Muslims the only extremists in the world?
— Can the rulers’ lectures, announcements or even rules or regulations change the human behaviour? My vote is for
historians’ guidance, intellectuals’ ideas and social scientists’ involvement.
— Is enlightened moderation the same thing as our rulers think? I beg to differ, sir, “Muslims should join hands with Jews to fight against anyone who rebels,” says a book prescribed last year for our schoolchildren. Who will pick up the few Jews amongst the Zionists? Besides, our rulers have decided to change the mandate of the OIC to make it more moderate. Is not the OIC already less than moderate? Say, has the OIC adopted any policy for the US designs against Iran?
— As far as women’s marathon race recently held in Punjab is concerned, it has nothing to do with the concept of the enlightened moderation as the provincial government forgot to call it a race against “540 women raped or molested, 24 hurt by acid, 634 abducted and 115 killed on one pretext or another last year in southern Punjab only” (April 4).
The rulers expect us to adopt enlightened moderation. This looks like a one-way traffic. What about the enlightenment the other way round, starting from police station?
Are we aware that real hard work is required by all of us to make “an enlightened Pakistan”, which is a pre-requisite for the moderation of society?
Z.A. KAZMI
Karachi
WHEN Mr Ahmed Saeed had taken over from Mr Sher Afghan as MD of PIA many hopes were raised but he started off badly by selecting a team of advisers, who were part of the problem and not the solution. PIA’s corporate corridors were dominated by mediocrity and milmanagement. Political interference by civil and military regimes had strengthened the hands of a group of executives who had eroded cipline and finances.
A top heavy incompetent management was involved in a nexus between travel and cargo agents, depriviting it of vast revenues. Human resources were depleted.
Mr. Ahmed Saeed’s ‘kitchen’ cabinet advised him to ban all unions, and cut costs by resorting to wage reduction. What they failed to focus on was
revenue generation and a freeze or rollback of revenue pilferage.
PIA employee salaries were only 18 to 19 per cent of the total operating costs (in spite of the vast number of employees) which was still below the international aviation industry average of 21 to 23 per cent of total operating costs. In the first few quarters, this saving contributed to a break-even and then a profit. However, revenues declined due to utilization of low capacity aircraft, frequent schedule changes and a few bad deals.
What PIA’s new chairman needs to do is to shun sycophants. He needs to rid PIA of executives guilty of “conflict of interest”, indiscipline and financial irregularities.
reservation and marketing are areas that need rapid improvement. Maintenance of aircraft and cabin interior are another weak area, so is operation and traffic. Workers need to be motivated by a team of honest and highly qualified professionals. The passenger should be treated as if he is the king, because without him or revenue cargo, there can be no profitable and commercially viable airline.
TAHIR-UL-MULK
Islamabad
ACCORDING to a news item (April 7), the NWFP environmental tribunal has started functioning and has issued notices to 36 parties for various environmental-related offences. The cases pertain to factories, brick kilns, crush machines and marble manufacturing units. Previously, a tribunal based in Lahore was dealing with cases concerning the NWFP.
In 1999, the federal government, under section 20(1) of PEPA, 1997, established two environmental protection tribunals in the country, one having jurisdiction for Punjab, the NWFP and Islamabad capital area and the other for Sindh and Balochistan.
As a part of the procedure, a common citizen as an individual or a group can file a complaint with the provincial Environmental Protection Agency to report any threat to the environment.
The following are some suggestions in this regard:
There is an urgent need to establish two more environmental tribunals for Azad Jammu the Kashmir and Northern Areas. Strict laws should be incorporated in the legislative framework for the Northern Areas regarding tree-cutting practice
Under the prevalent regulatory system, there is not much scope for extensive environmental protection basically due to the fact that the environmental tribunal cannot take suo motu action and can take cognizance only on the complaint of either a federal or provincial agency or a private citizen.
Environmental tribunals should be authorized to take notice on their own of offences like mangrove destruction in the Karachi coastal area. Workshops should be held to build a collective and shared vision amongst the public and private sectors regarding environmental laws and their relevance and implementation.
An environmental engineer/ environmentalist should be appointed as an adviser to environmental magistrates. Participation of NGOs to assist the ministry of environment to make the environmental tribunals effective and the formation of community groups will also be of help in this regard.
RASHID ASHRAF
Karachi
THE Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) wants to have a finger in every pie, be it nuclear power production or its application; medicine, agriculture, isotope production or management and disposal of nuclear waste material; software, fabrication or planning, design and construction of all nuclear facilities — things that should be handled by the private sector.
Much of this work should clearly be out of the commission’s designated scope of activity that should be restricted to the duties of a regulatory body. Even otherwise it is beyond the scope of any single agency to have all these facilities and faculties in-house in a single public sector department. In other words, the PAEC wants to perform a task that has no parallel and assumes a disproportionate burden on the national exchequer.
To make matters worse, when it comes down to actually delivering a facility like a nuclear power plant, the commission ends up writing tender documents and performing contract administration after awarding one-sided contracts to other countries.
In the development of nuclear facilities the PAEC’s primary function should remain promotion and regulation of nuclear facilities — the task it has been created for — and it should avoid being a white elephant.
ARIF QAMAR KHAN
Islamabad
THE House Building Finance Corporation (HBFC) had offered a relief package to its borrowers (Dawn, Sep 17, 2004) to pay outstanding amounts in 36 monthly instalments against a fixed rate of 10 per cent (instead of 15-20 per cent) mark-up.
I took a loan (Account # 7033134077) of Rs396,000 in 1997 and the total repayment initially contracted was Rs798,798. By now I have already paid Rs540,000 — more than Rs150,000 over the principal amount with a regular payment rate of Rs6,000 per month. I also applied for the relief package offered under this scheme. I was surprised to see that the package offered by the HBFC is totally against the announcement made by the federal government through the newspapers. The relief package offered in their letter of Sep 14, 2004, reduces the repayment amount while doubling the period (from 2009 to 2018) and the amount of loan (from Rs298,798 to Rs605,000).
While loan mark-ups have declined considerably from 20 to 4-5 per cent all over the world, especially in house financing schemes, the HBFC still has the highest mark-up rates in the world.
I wrote a letter to the district manager seeking clarification of the relief policy; unfortunately my letter was never answered. I request the prime minister and the authority concerned to instruct the HBFC to give genuine relief to borrowers with good repayment records.
MUHAMMAD TARIQ
Karachi
THE BJP leader L. K. Advani was born in Karachi and spent the first 20 years of his life in this city. However, your correspondents have often said that Mr Advani was born in Hyderabad and even in your issue of April 19, the news item “Advani sees progress” (page 3), your correspondent has stated, “... he was likely to go to Pakistan in coming June and also visit his birthplace in Hyderabad.”
A report in The Times of India on March 9, 2002, had quoted Mr Advani as saying: “My birthplace is Karachi. I had spent the first 20 years of my life there. It is natural for me to feel happy when I get an invitation. I had visited it only once in 1978 in the last 50 years.”
SHAKIR LAKHANI
Karachi
I READ Mr Ardeshir Cowasjee’s column, “A woman in their lives” (April 17) and then Brig (retd) A. S. Nasir’s letter with the same title (April 20). I am glad the brigadier exercised his right to respond to the article’s remarks, else we would never have known the thought processes of the chief controller of buildings, KBCA. The brigadier surely has the right to earn his livelihood; for that matter, every honest law-abiding citizen of this land is entitled to the same.
What is so special about the brigadier’s request? Every year thousands of people retire from service in this country and not many people have the luxury of getting their pensions and having another go at employment too (I will stand corrected if the brigadier is not getting his pension from his previous appointment).
Please let someone young and energetic have the opportunity of doing something. We have all been seeing what the current set up of the KBCA is doing.
HASAN BIN HAMZA
Karachi
“I am from New Delhi, India. I found your article ‘A woman in their lives’ very interesting. Ms Ghaloo would be happy to know that she has a counterpart in India. Perhaps you have heard the name of Ms Kiran Bedi (she won the prestigious Magsaysay Award for her reforms in the infamous Tihar Jail, Delhi). May the tribes of Ghaloos and Bedis increase. We need them in this part of the world.
“I will be thankful if you could possibly inform Ms Ghaloo that she has admirers in India too.”
My co-columnist, Kunwar Idris, once the chief secretary of this sorry province, also rang me.
He named Nargis Ghaloo and two other women officers and told me that were the province to be in the hands of just these three women it would be far more satisfactorily run than it now is
Good for them.
ARDESHIR COWASJEE
Karachi
WHILE supporting the rejoinder by Mr Muslim (April 16) to Mr Mohiuddin Waseem (April 8) justifying innovative actions of some reactionary Muslim feminists, I would like to add that the rejoinder serves to reveal only the tip of the iceberg.
The feminists who organized Friday prayers as a campaign for the right of women to pray in mosques, shoulder to shoulder with men, cannot be alone in seeking to disrupt the established order throughout the Muslim world. They cannot afford to do so without being instigated and supported by the historic enemies of Islam — fundamentalist / obscurantist Zionists and right-wing Christians.
A Friday prayer to be valid has to be in a mosque and led by a qualified male imam.
AKBAR KHAN
Karachi
I would like to draw the attention of the DHA authorities to what is happening at the DHA football ground park off Khayaban-i-Rahat in Phase 6, Karachi.
After several months of representation from area residents, the DHA finally agreed to replace the perimeter fence of the football ground which was broken and lying in parts all over the park and to renovate the park. After about one year, a contractor finally started work on the fence. However, instead of replacing the fence, he had the old fence — which is badly corroded and damaged — reinstalled with the help of a small concrete foundation wall that runs around the football ground. The wall is not strong enough to hold the fence nor is the fence in good shape. It has been filled with putty and painted to give it a new look.
I am sure that this fence, which will cost the DHA about a million rupees, will give way in about three to four months. Will someone take action?
RAFIA TAJ
Karachi
THE other day millions of Pakistanis sat glued to their TV sets watching the second marriage of Prince Charles or rather just the peripheral arrangements, the actual ceremony being open to only a handful.
While the British took the marriage in their stride, with moods ranging from indifference and nonchalance to mild interest, Pakistanis appeared to have been quite fascinated by the event. This reminded me of the Urdu proverb: Begaani shaadi mein Abdullah deewaana. I have tried to render it in English as follows: Raving mad went Abdullah / Over bridal knots / And wedding bells / Which concerned him not.
Jokes apart, we must appreciate the step taken by the groom and the bride at long last to legalize and legitimize a relationship whose existence over decades was public knowledge.
WAJID NAEEMUDDIN
Karachi
IT is about a year now since the government had announced an eight to 16 per cent increase in the pensions of retired employees of the government and autonomous/semi-autonomous bodies working under it. However, retired employees of the Port Qasim Authority (PQA) are still waiting for implementation of the government decision. Several telephonic reminders to the relevant officials of the PQA have failed to bear any fruit.
The PQA chairman is urged to direct the officials concerned to implement the decision of the government without further delay so that the retired employees of the authority also benefit within the current fiscal year as the government is about to announce further relief based on the recommendations of the Pay and Pension Committee.
The chairman is also requested to pass orders for implementation of future relief in case of the retired employees simultaneously with the regular employees of the PQA as the pensioners deserve more sympathy because of their meagre income as compared to regular employees and due to the ever-rising cost of living.
S. T. N. GHANI
Karachi
THE main branch of Muslim Commercial Bank (MCB) at I. I. Chundrigar Road, Karachi, has informed its PLS account holders to maintain a minimum balance of Rs10,000 in their accounts otherwise a deduction of Rs 50 per month will be made. How can a lower middle-class salaried person maintain such an amount in these times of high inflation?
The State Bank of Pakistan being the regulator should protect citizens by taking action against such banks. Only corporate entities should be asked to maintain a minimum deposit limit, not individuals.
AFFECTED
Karachi
It is ironic that on the same page (April 20 issue) that has a picture of a tree being cut down by city government officials, the Karachi nazim is reported as asking students to plant more trees (April 20).
While the city nazim may have done some wonderful work in the city in the past four years, he will also be remembered for being responsible for the cutting down of thousands of trees under one pretext or another.
Instead of having trees replaced, the city government simply disposes of healthy trees to the timber mafia in the city.
SAADIA INAM
Karachi
IT was reported in the press on April 17 that German automaker giants like Renault, Volkswagen, Bosch and Lego are interested in installing assembly plants in Pakistan.
It is good to see the interest of German companies in the Pakistani auto market which badly needs more assemblers to meet the local demand for cars.
Under the prevailing conditions it is very necessary for the Pakistan government to provide an investment-friendly environment for foreign investors.
IRFAN SALAM
Lahore
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