| July 3, 2005 | Sunday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 25, 1426 |
To send a letter to the Editor
Click here
Law for pre-marriage blood test
Gender and environment
Margin financing
Rashid’s IHK visa
Kalabagh Dam
Patient’s agony
Persisting scourge
Withholding tax
ST anomaly in steel sector
PU evening programmes
THERE has been considerable thinking and debate on international aid, patterns of trade and the framework of a new international economic order during the last three decades. The arguments have been conducted sometimes in a heated atmosphere and at other times with sober realism. At first economic aid was looked upon as an act of compassion, the cause being the uplift of the less privileged by those more fortunately placed.
As the argument got more heated, the view was articulated that the affluent countries owed it to the developing world to make up for the ruthless exploitation that had characterized their relationship in the past. Logical as this argument may be, it leaves one significant question unanswered: who will bell the cat and how? It is difficult to find ways to bend the mighty.
Cold logic suggests that the transfer of resources on a fairly large scale has become a necessary condition for laying the foundations of a just and equitable New International Economic Order. The affluent countries, however, drag their feet. Perceptions of what developed and developing countries gain from and owe to each other continue to differ.
As such if there has been any progress in reforming the present inequitable international economic order, it can be measured in inches; but the world has to go long miles before a satisfactory result is achieved. The assertion of will and any efforts at collective action on the part of the Third World have always aroused suspicion and distrust among developed countries.
It is clear, however, that the illogic of the present world situation is being gradually accepted, and that at the conceptual level the need for a New International Economic Order is recognized. Progress is slow because the Third World lacks collective muscle. Its voice would carry much greater weight if it could achieve cohesion and a sense of direction. As things stand, many of the countries of the Third World can too easily be manipulated by the rich industrialized countries.
AFTAB AHMAD KHAN
Karachi
THIS refers to the news report ‘Law for pre-marriage blood test on the cards’ (Dawn, June 20). Speaking at a ceremony organized by the Fatimid Foundation, Senate Chairman Mohammedmian Soomro hinted at a “new legislation that would require marrying couples to undergo thalassaemia screening test prior to marriage”. He also assured support for another proposal regarding a law to promote voluntary blood donation among the adult population.
Thalassaemia Major is a severe anemia which is found in children of parents who are carriers of this gene. Caring for such children puts unbearable financial burden and emotional strain on parents, and also stretches the resources of the community and the state. The state needs to set up counselling centres across the country, and ensure availability of reliable blood testing laboratories that would offer screening tests at affordable price.
The only way to reduce the burden of thalassaemia care is by effective counselling. However, passing laws and forcing marrying couple to undergo thalassaemia screening tests before marriage is, to say the least, intruding on the privacy of an individual and violating the basic human right to ‘choose’. It would also open another floodgate for misappropriation of the law, with which we are all too familiar. There are many situations where the health of an individual is at risk, but there are no laws against the factors responsible. Smoking is a case in point. The health department can only write a message, warning of the hazardous effects of smoking on health, but there can be no law prohibiting smoking.
The need to launch a drive that would discourage marriage between couples at risk is definitely required and should be pursued. Making legislation requiring mandatory screening for thalassaemia for marrying couples is not the way forwards.
KHALID ZAFAR HASHMI
Karachi
IN many less developed countries, increasing attention is being given to the critical role of women in population and environment programmes and in achieving sustainable development. Women grow a substantial proportion of the world’s food, and there is considerable evidence that their labour-intensive food production practices tend to be environmentally sound, and are contributing substantially to food production while at the same time protecting the resource base.
There is a lack of a gender-oriented approach in the utilization of natural resources. Women and children, especially those living in rural areas, are disproportionately affected; rural women spend hours every day collecting and carting water, either from communal taps or directly from streams and rivers.
Long distances pose particular difficulties for elderly people and those with disabilities. Poor communities are often unable to afford the costs of maintaining pumps and boreholes, or lack the skills to do so. It is now very clear that gender differences and inequalities influence the extent and nature of almost every form of environmental concern.
A workshop held in Islamabad on “Gender concepts in relation to environment and sustainable development” (May 11) was an effort to create awareness among the masses towards this issue. The event was organized by the National Conservation Strategy Resource Centre of the federal environment ministry. The objective of the workshop was to create awareness about degradation of natural resources and environment with regard to current economic development and its role in a gender perspective.
The time has come to pay attention to the critical role of women in environment programmes and in achieving sustainable development. Women grow a substantial proportion of the world’s food, and their labour-intensive food production practices have to be environmentally sound. As resource managers, women perform various roles like providing food, fuel, fodder and water. They are the caretakers of their family’s health.
Incorporating ‘gender and environment’ in the curricula of education and training programmes would help to create the required awareness about the issue.
RASHID ASHRAF
Karachi
I AM neither a stockbroker nor a trader, but merely a student of economics, with an academic interest in Pakistan’s economy. I have seen with anguish and surprise how the stock market is being manipulated and how known manipulators go scot-free. Those who watch Pakistan’s economy know it well what happened in the black March of this year. Many middle class families lost their life’s savings when the Karachi stock market crashed.
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan and the KSE decision to phase out the decades-old and established ‘badla’ or carryover trade (COT) financing is leading the stock market to a serious liquidity crisis. The market is about to experience another critical situation similar to the crisis seen in March.
Badla financing has been serving the liquidity needs at the KSE for decades. The forced shift from badla to margin financing has been abrupt, without providing reasonable opportunity to the small investors to adjust to the new rules of the game.
The SECP has maintained its rigid stand to phase out ‘badla’. No sensible brokerage house has ever denied that margin financing is a more modern financial tool but the way it has been enforced has raised many eyebrows about the intentions.
Many may not be aware that the software for margin financing is not yet ready but the regulators have decided to phase out ‘badla’ financing by August.
Although apparently the banking system has promised to make Rs30 billion available for margin financing, the ground reality is that only the bellyful will eat the pie, not the small ones.
The regulators have turned a blind eye not only to the cries of the small investors but have jeopardized the whole system. In fact, many bankers are not even aware of margin financing laws.
A better solution would have been to run ‘badla’ and margin financing in parallel. The positives of margin financing would themselves have attracted investors and reduced ‘badla’ financing.
RAGHIB SADIQUE
Karachi
THE Indian external affairs ministry spokesman told reporters that the Indian government “has declined to accord permission taking into account all relevant aspects involved” while processing Sheikh Rashid’s application to visit Indian-held Kashmir.
The decision not to allow the information minister to cross the Line of Control was taken at a high-level meeting in New Delhi. Apparently his entry has been denied as a result of the revelation made by one of the Kashmiri leaders (Yasin Malik), who recently visited Azad Kashmir and Pakistan, about Sheikh Rashid allegedly running training camps at his farmhouse where about 3,500 mujahideen were trained to fight inside the held-Kashmir.
There was no need to deny this fact, whatever it was, by our honourable minister or to refute the statement of Yasin Malik. It is history.
There are no training camps now. We are making peace moves and trying to forget the past. The refusal of entry to Sheikh Rashid would bring bitterness and may stall the peace process. India should be magnanimous enough to allow Sheikh Rashid who is a part of the Pakistan government to ride the “Dosti” bus to visit the Indian-held Kashmir to meet his relatives and friends.
India should remember that we welcomed Mr L. K. Advani to Pakistan who was allegedly fully involved in the Babri Mosque demolition and other anti-Muslim episodes.
Wake up, India. Are you really serious about the peace process?
MUHAMMAD AZHAR
KHWAJA
Lahore
MR Khurshid Anwar’s letter (June 26) is ill-timed and incorrect. His attempt to introduce yet another element in the highly politicized project is unfortunate.
The Kalabagh dam was never Gen Zia’s dam. Its feasibility report was prepared before his takeover. In the 50s at the time when India had threatened to stop irrigation water supplies to Pakistan, the Central Engineering Authority had hired the services of western dam engineers to identify possible storage sites on the main Indus gorge, specially in the salt zone.
The Kalabagh dam site was one of the sites identified by them. The site was known earlier as the most easily approachable dam site on the Indus. However, at the time when Indus Basin projects were being selected, Tarbela dam was given preference over Kalabagh.
When the Tarbela dam was nearing completion, Mr Shahnawaz Khan, the then chairman of Wapda, commissioned a consortium of two Pakistani consulting engineers, to prepare a feasibility study of the Kalabagh Dam project.
The present location of the dam was selected by a team of five international experts. The feasibility report was completed in 1973-74. In the mid-70s, time was right for taking up the project soon after the completion of Tarbela Dam but because of the disturbed political situation the project was delayed.
It was during the 80s that several other factors, including politics, got introduced into the project because of overzealous elements, who created doubts and distrust about the project in the minds of the smaller provinces. We are still suffering from the actions of these elements.
The Kalabagh dam was never a political project. It was not started under the orders of Gen Zia nor was known as Ms Benazir Bhutto’s or Mian Nawaz Sharif’s dam. It is purely an engineering project proposed by the federal government for the economic well being of the country.
Technically and economically, it is a sound project but politics, distrust and doubts have harmed this project. Mr Anwar should have waited for finalization of the report of the technical committee on water resources before speaking up. It is hoped that the government will take a decision which is beneficial to the country and to all the four provinces.
IQTIDAR H. SIDDIQUI
Chairman, Society for Conservation of Resources and Environment, Karachi
Mr Khurshid Anwer, on the one hand, is not ready to give importance to the resolutions passed by three out of the four elected provincial assemblies and, on the other, he cites as valid the resolution of the people of France in rejecting the EU constitution.
The correspondent describes assemblies as having a narrow view. This is wrong and is an insult to the people of the three provinces.
I suggest that the interest of the whole country be upheld and not the interest of one province while taking major decisions. The decision taken recently on the controversial Greater Thal Canal is an example of unilateralism. Such decisions are harmful to the national interest. Now we must learn a lesson from the past.
IMRAN KHAN SIAL
Karachi
ON June 27 I took my 80-year-old sister, who was in a serious condition, to the emergency department of the Aga Khan Hospital at 5.20pm but she had to wait for her turn for three hours in the hall which was jampacked with patients and persons accompanying them.
In the waiting hall, many of the patients were lying on benches and many had to remain standing. The doctor at the emergency counter, when requested by me to expedite my sister’s check-up, said that the space and facilities in their emergency department were not sufficient to handle so many patients as people suffering even from minor illnesses like coughs and colds came to the emergency department, thus making it impossible for doctors to attend to every patient immediately.
The management is requested to look into this problem and increase the space and facilities in their emergency department.
SQN LDR (retd) S. AUSAF
HUSAIN
Karachi
THE power crisis is nothing new; it has been our scourge for years now. What we do remember is the torture year after year as also, above all, the assurances and promises from the highest down to the field staff of improvement in supply and services which never materialize.
The sufferers are those who regularly pay KESC bills which, if one is not in the good books of the KESC field staff, can be quite arbitrary. On the other hand, power thieves, i.e., ‘kunda’ users, are enjoying free supply with the apparent connivance of the field staff.
There is also hardly any industry in Pakistan that does not manipulate meters with the help of the field staff. People actually cannot be blamed for theft because of atrociously high power charges. If honestly paid, they will price industry out of the domestic and export market.
So what do we do? Nothing except keep on suffering, especially as such mundane problems as energy, sanitation, health, etc, are below the dignity of our overlords to bother about.
But history has at least one lesson. It is not debacles on the diplomatic or battlefields that cause political upheavals; it is always domestic crises that do so.
M. HASAN
Karachi
REFERENCE Dawn EBR (June 30) regarding withholding tax on cash withdrawals at banks, people will now be even more inclined towards cash dealings than transacting through banks to avoid this tax, creating more fish in the bowls to be picked up by dacoits and muggers.
RAFI AHMED
Karachi
DURING the last budget the steel melters and other manual rolling mills using steel ingots and c.c. billets, produced by melters, were allowed to pay Rs300 plus Rs200, that is, Rs500, per ton in sales tax. Although full sales tax was not paid, new rules were framed in the last budget which gave legitimacy to the illegal activities of a significant sector of the steel industry.
We, the re-rollers, had also requested last year before the budget that the government should not notify the proposed rules but we were told that the melters had promised to pay over a billion rupees under the new scheme as against Rs139 million that they have paid during 2003-2004. We were told to be patient and that the department was looking for more revenues from melters.
It may be noted that we buy our raw material, i.e., steel billets, from Pakistan Steel and our unit is fully documented and organized. We pay to the government an output tax of approximately Rs5,200 per ton whereas the steel melters are paying only Rs500 per ton. This is not fair.
We want a level playing field so that competition can be held on an equal basis. We should also be allowed to pay Rs500 per ton as allowed to steel melters. This will lead to parity and equal competition. The same procedure and same rate be applied to the taxable value of mild steel products for all sectors of the steel industry. The rate of 15 per cent may be reduced to about five per cent sales tax so as to bring some parity in the sales tax paid by others. The steel sector should be zero-rated which will bring in much needed growth and investment in the steel sector.
We may point out that the potential sales tax revenue that the government can get from the steel sector is about Rs 13 billion. Out of this, the government collected Rs3.1 billion in 2003-2005. It will be seen that about 25 to 30 per cent revenue has been collected and the rest of the tax has been evaded and not collected.
ABBAS AKBERALI
Karachi
MANY departments of the Punjab University are offering self-financed evening programmes. The attitude of the teachers has affected the evening programmes. Generally, a period lasts 90 minutes, but most teachers arrive 30 to 45 minutes late and leave the classroom after half an hour. There are very few teachers who remain in the class for at least 80 per cent of the time. In every third or fourth lecture many teachers send the attendance sheet without showing up in the classroom.
I would strongly suggest to the PU administration to make a rule that a period will be considered properly constituted only if a teacher remains in the classroom for at least 80 per cent of the time. Teachers should also mention the actual starting and finishing times on the attendance sheet.
JALAL UD DIN
Lahore
You can also send letters to the Editor
Just send your message to the following address:
Make sure you include your full name, postal address, e-mail address, and in the case of Pakistan your day-time telephone number.