| June 15, 2005 | Wednesday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 7, 1426 |
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Badly handled
Curbing population growth
PERHAPS not unjustifiably, the National Accountability Bureau came under sharp criticism in the National Assembly on Monday. The provocation was the sizable budgetary increase for NAB. Among others, Mr Imran Khan wondered why NAB was going to get more money when it had so little to show by way of results. While the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf chief dilated on good governance and the role of the judiciary, Khwaja Asif of the PML-N referred to a phenomenon that unfortunately has come to characterize NAB’s performance since its inception. The PML-N MNA wondered why NAB was targeting only politicians while generals and judges were being considered immune from accountability. The point is valid. All military regimes, starting with Ayub Khan’s, have only targeted politicians and used the bogey of accountability as a tool for persecuting political opponents. Regrettably, some civilian governments, too, especially in the 1988-1999 period, adopted this skewed approach and made a mockery of the judicial process to persecute the opposition.
To put the record straight, this government did indeed arrest and prosecute some military men, including a former navy chief and an air vice-marshal. But the thrust of the accountability drive has been against the politicians. Here, too, it has compromised on principles, as seen in the deal under which a convicted Nawaz Sharif and his family were allowed to go in exile to Saudi Arabia. Similarly, it kept Mr Asif Ali Zardari in prison until he was allowed to leave the country last year in circumstances that bore all the marks of a deal. Mr Faisal Saleh Hayat’s case — before he became federal interior minister — is too well known to warrant a repetition. The most important of the cases which seem to enjoy immunity from prosecution is that of the money used for floating an anti-PPP alliance. A former army chief is on record as having said that he gave Rs 140 million, taken from a bank, to some political parties for this purpose. Despite this confession, NAB has not considered it fit to take up the case.
To eradicate corruption, accountability must be a continuous process and not something to be pursued by fits and starts. Decades of authoritarian rule have done enormous harm to Pakistan and contributed to massive corruption. During Ziaul Haq’s time, development funds were given to MNAs and MPAs for launching projects in their constituencies. Actually, this was meant as a bribe to keep them in line. Corruption exists in democracies, too — Japan, India, Turkey, the Philippines come readily to mind — but the opposition and the press are free to bring graft to public notice. The press in Pakistan is enjoying a freedom unprecedented under a military-led government and is doing its bit to expose corruption. But NAB must get its act together. It has not pursued an accountability process that can be called transparent. Its selectivity, in excluding judges, military men and pro-establishment politicians, has made it seem biased. This has tended to make NAB’s intentions open to criticism. Other areas which deserve NAB’s attention are housing societies and stock exchanges. Recent events have highlighted the need for scrutinizing the working of these organizations and proceeding against those involved in corruption and manipulation.
IT HAS now become abundantly clear that the entire PTCL privatization issue has been badly handled despite almost a decade of agonizing over it. The latest turn of events in what is becoming a messy affair can only confirm this impression. First, June 10 was posted as the date for privatization. Following protests from workers and sensible advice from the press, it was announced that the decision had been put off, without specifying any new date. This announcement was made after talks with the workers and there appeared reasonable ground to hope for a more extensive consideration of the subject from all angles. Now suddenly June 18 has been decreed as the new date for inviting bids, which means that the postponement, welcomed by all concerned, was for just a week. If this was intended to take the steam out of resistance to the proposal, it hasn’t quite worked that way. PTCL installations have had to be secured by security personnel; the workers are restive; the package announced to mollify them has not been endorsed by the PTCL union; and an atmosphere created where it is difficult to envisage many serious bidders coming in.
Even if in principle privatization is seen as right, the sudden rush to get done with it has led to a situation where the government seems pitted against its own employees. Arrests have been made on a large scale and, what is worse, employees’ families are being harassed, with relatives picked up to blackmail the wanted persons into surrendering. This hardly seems the most conducive of ways in which to usher in privatization of one of the country’s most vital strategic concerns.
The present government could have carried through many of its intended reforms in the economic and social fields if it had acted decisively in its early days. The initial push has been lost and the government is now mired in bureaucratic gobbledygook and its own political ambitions. We urge the prime minister to take stock of the PTCL issue in a detached manner and without turning it into a matter of prestige. Even developed countries have taken years to move into privatization. A little more debate and discussion should ensure that privatization, when it comes, is smooth and really serves the purpose for which it is intended.
PAKISTAN’s population growth rate may have fallen from over three to 1.9 per cent over the years but, as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank pointed out the other day, an effective long-term strategy is still needed to further reduce the birth rate. About three million people are being added annually to the existing figure of 150 million, and it is estimated that within the next 10 years, Pakistan, which is already the sixth most populous country in the world, would have crossed the 200 million mark. With poverty levels increasing and with existing resources already stretched to the limit, it is uncertain how the country will feed, clothe and shelter new generations of children and adults and provide them with even the basic minimum living facilities. Moreover, with rural folk — many of whom live in almost subhuman conditions — moving to the towns and cities, the stress on the urban centres would mean growing unemployment, greater poverty and a worsening crime situation.
The answer obviously lies in curtailing the fertility rate that at 4.1 births per woman is double that of the target figure of 2.1 envisioned by the population policy. Much of this has to do with the general lack of awareness about the disadvantages of large families, and more specifically with the fact that women, subjected to pressure from their husbands and in-laws, are generally denied the right to use contraceptives. For although large families, especially where there are sons, have often been touted as a safeguard against financial insecurity in later years, the truth is that, deprived of many basic rights like education, children often grow into adults who are ill-equipped to provide for their elderly parents and other dependents. This is the message the government should be spreading among the people, in addition to making greater efforts towards the empowerment of women.