PRIME MINISTER Shaukat Aziz has appealed to Muslim entrepreneurs to invest in Pakistan. He issued the appeal when he met a delegation of the Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which responded very favourably.

In fact, this has been happening in recent years to a considerable extent. Much of the foreign investment which came to Pakistan in this period, particularly through the process of privatization, has been from the oil-rich states of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. They are also showing increasing interest in banking in Pakistan, and are now taking the lead in Islamic banking.

There are good reasons why the Arab states are now showing considerable interest in making sizable investments in Pakistan. In the past, they used to invest their money in the West. But under the prevailing global political climate it has become somewhat risky for the Arab businessmen to make large investments in the western countries. The western economy has also been experiencing occasional fluctuations. Moreover, there are economic uncertainties in some countries such as Germany and France. The EU is rocked by the fission from within.

The US economy has been passing through varied convulsions. The dollar has depreciated against strong currencies like the euro and America’s adverse balance of payments continues to persist. Arabs visiting the US have to pass through unacceptable checks.

Compared to that, Pakistan is in the neighbourhood of the Gulf States, and Arabs have always been warmly welcomed here. Some of them have homes here. The Arabs find in Pakistan a favourable investment climate that is conducive to making profits. Foreign investors are free to invest in any sector of the economy and they can own 100 per cent of the capital. They can repatriate their entire profit as well as the capital any time.

Foreign, investors make a profit of 50 to 100 per cent or more, and they are free to reinvest that as well. They can borrow far more from the banks here and invest. At the moment the interest rates are very low for credible borrowers.

Until some years ago the number of federal, provincial and local taxes numbered 101, but this number has come down greatly by now. The rate of taxation and duties have also come down. And the trend is to persist as the economy is being readied to face international competition under the WTO regime. But we want far more than Arab investors.

We need western investors, too, as we open ourselves up to the world, and seek free trade area agreements with the US and many other countries. For that broader horizon, we have far to go, and we have to improve the conditions at home a great deal. We need political stability even if that means as imperfect democracy as India’s. Political stability alone can assure foreign investors that our economic policies will not change suddenly.

In India, the BJP-led government gave way to the Congress-led government but the basic economic policies did not change, although there was undoubtedly a change in emphasis here and there. An investor takes three years or more to plan his project mobilize capital, and come to the stage of production. If, during this period, the industrial or taxation policy changes he can face critical financial difficulties. That makes political stability and economic certainty very important. We do not have that kind of political stability, no matter much we may proclaim that we have.

The law and order situation is far from satisfactory. There have been two attacks on the president and one on the prime minister.

Four rockets were fired at the Balochistan chief minister’s house the other day. What is striking is the number of police officials involved in crimes, including station house officers. If the policemen become offenders, how can people protect themselves?

The judicial process is faulty to a high degree and takes too long for judgments to be delivered. The judgments are then not enforced. Litigation is too costly. Currently the Mukhtaran Mai case is making world headlines and despite the desperate efforts of the government it has not been able to keep the offence against her away from the foreign press.

The lower courts are always under pressure to give the kind of judgment which the local chieftain demands or the jirga desires.

Foreign investors find the infrastructure grossly inadequate. There is a lasting shortage of power which results in frequent breakdowns of power supply or planned loadshedding. Now the industrial units have been allowed to have their own power supply but they can’t supply the surplus power to anyone else.

Water is another problem in the industrial areas, particularly in Karachi. Those with money can buy tanker water, but that is getting increasingly costly as oil prices rise. Quite often, there is a power failure at the water pumps.

The country needs large dams but we have been having a debate on the merits and demerits of the Kalabagh dam for the last 20 years. The World Bank is ready to finance a few major dams but the government has to take a decision first. The whole thing has become a hot political issue.

Some officials recently proposed the creation of a separate multibillion dollar infrastructure fund outside the budget. That is to be funded heavily by the multilateral aid agencies. But now, there appears to be real opposition to this move from within the government. Whether we have this fund outside the budget or not we need more infrastructural facilities than available at present. That includes a proper environmental system complete with drainage facilities, good roads and properly developed ports.

We have to rid the administrative system of corruption. It is no use making claims that the government has been rid of corruption at the higher levels. Even if that is true, people only deal with junior officials, whether belonging to the police, the revenue or other departments.

Corruption must be rooted out from all such places. Look at the volume of corruption at the lower levels. A policeman manning a checkpost received one million rupees for letting truckload of smuggled goods pass through last week. He was arrested and the money seized from him.

The volume of goods coming into the country legally and illegally is on the increase, as the economy grows. Hence, firm measures have to be taken against crimes.

In fact, heavy smuggling of highly-taxed items is one of the serious complaints of foreign investors as well as Pakistani businessmen. It is not fair to the foreign and local manufacturers that while they pay heavy duties on the goods they import, others are allowed to get the same smuggled goods free after bribing the officials concerned and sell them at almost the same prices as one pays for the duty-paid imported goods.

Another complaint of the investors pertains to the high price of land in Pakistan. Land prices had gone up even before the current peak levels. The provincial governments were not setting up new industrial estates, particularly the Sindh government. The Punjab government came up with the Sundar Industrial Estate, and then a value added estate at Faisalabad.

The Sindh government has woken up to the issue quite late in the day and now proposes to allot plots in the existing industrial estates on instalment basis if the industries are set up within two years. Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, who announced this scheme, would have done better if he has moved to set up one or two new industrial estates with the requite facilities like power, gas and water. He has chosen the easy option but without providing information about the number of plots available in the existing industrial states or the total acreage. Let us see how it works in actual practice.

Industry is the heaviest taxed sector in Pakistan in the manner agriculture is the least taxed. Industrialists in Karachi have been complaining of having to pay 40 to 45 taxes, federal, provincial and local, and seeking relief which has been coming slowly. The current budget is a landmark in tax relief for industries which is to be a continuous process.

Foreign investors and Pakistani businessmen have been complaining of the high cost of doing business in Pakistan which needs to be reduced. The government admits the high cost of doing business and has promised to reduce that step by step.

Labour laws in Pakistan are another critical issue. Some of them are too old and need to be amended drastically. Foreign investors complain while they conform to the labour laws to the maximum extent possible, Pakistani industrialists are able to violate many of the laws, particularly in textile mills.

Labour laws have to be made uniformly applicable to all enterprises. Western importers of Pakistani goods, too, are insisting on that.

If productivity has to go up the number of holidays should also be reduced, and certainly the announcement of several extra-holidays along with the scheduled ones.

Workers and the management should have better work-ethics to increase productivity and improve products. In an increasingly competitive world our products and their packaging should be improving all the time.

There is a growing realization of the need for such changes. What is necessary is to put them into practice in a sustained manner and become globally more competitive. In such an environment foreign investors will find themselves amply rewarded and our own investors amply recompensed.

A LETTER to the editor of this newspaper (June 20) complained that not a month passed without General Musharraf going to foreign lands. According to a report in another newspaper (May 31), General Musharraf went on 41 official tours abroad between June 2000 and December 2004 and visited 71 countries. These travels cost Rs 658 million.

In passing it may be mentioned also that between November 2002 and January 2005 our three prime ministers (Jamali, Shujaat Hussain, and Shaukat Aziz) visited 34 countries and their travel cost the exchequer Rs 350 million.

The president and the prime minister take a delegation (“entourage”) along when they go on their foreign visits. General Musharraf’s team usually includes about 30 individuals, but the one he took to Australia and New Zealand consisted of 55. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz took a delegation of 70 persons on his eight-day tour of four Southeast Asian countries in May 2005, including nine ministers, 13 officials from the prime minister’s secretariat, several foreign service officers, and a few politicians.

They got free travel, lodging in the best available hotels, and food at the public’s expense; in addition, each of them received $300 to $500 as spending money. Most of them, having nothing to do, went out shopping or watched comings and goings in hotel lobbies. One may assume that the same kind of allowances and amenities are made available to persons who accompany General Musharraf.

I know of no other head of state or government who travels out of his country as much as General Musharraf does. One may say that he does not have to do as others do. The time and money spent on his travels should be viewed alongside the benefits to Pakistan that he brings back. This makes sense. Let us then look closely to identify the good he has accomplished during some of his more recent foreign visits.

Compensating, as it were, for his angry outburst in Agra in July 2001, his visits to Delhi now gush with conviviality. He told his audiences there last April that he had come with a changed heart (“naya dil”), which they probably understood to mean that he would now be more giving than before, which indeed he was. Manmohan Singh (cool, calm, and economical with words) professed to have enjoyed talking with the general.

In the outcome of his talks, Musharraf saw a measure of achievement beyond his expectation even though none of it became apparent to others. Pakistan departed from its old stand that a Kashmir settlement must precede progress on other fronts. The two sides agreed on an action plan to bring them closer together. They agreed also that they would deal with the Kashmir problem in a “forward-looking” manner and go for a “soft” border between the Indian and Pakistani parts of the state.

In the same month (April 2005) Musharraf visited the Philippines where President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo accorded him a warm welcome. He assured her Pakistan’s support in bringing to an end the decades-old Muslim rebellion in Mindanao led by the Moro Muslim Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front. He also offered support for the Philippines getting observer status in OIC.

The two presidents watched while their officials signed an MoU providing for cooperation between them in fighting terrorism, another MoU envisaging the supply of low-cost medicines from Pakistan to the Philippines, an accord to waive the visa requirement for diplomatic passport holders from each country, and another to revive and implement an earlier cultural agreement (1961) relating to people-to-people contact in the area of performing arts and participation in each other’s festivals.

While the general conferred with Madame Gloria, her husband, the Philippines’ “first gentleman,” gave Pakistan’s first lady (Begum Sehba Musharraf) a tour of the living quarters in the presidential palace, where she was charmed by the one-year old presidential grand-daughter who waved kisses to her. Mr Arroyo and Begum Sehba then exchanged personal gifts.

Accounts of General Musharraf’s visit with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that I have seen do not make it clear what exactly she gave him to take home to his people.

General Musharraf went for the distinction of being the first Pakistani head of government to visit Latin America. Starting November 30, 2004, he visited Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico. Pakistan maintains an embassy in Brazil and Argentina but does not have a diplomatic presence in Mexico. There were themes that he stressed in all of these places. He highlighted Pakistan’s vital role in fighting terrorism, offered and received assurances of cooperation in carrying on this fight. He projected Pakistan as a modernizing, progressive state committed to “enlightened moderation.”

He explained Pakistan’s initiatives towards a peaceful resolution of its disputes with India and let it be known that the latter had not been responding in equal measure. He stressed Pakistan’s strategic location as a “gateway” to South Asia, Central Asia, and the Gulf states. He assured the political leaders and businessmen in each of these countries that Pakistan had a rapidly growing economy, believed in deregulation and privatization, that it was business friendly, and that it offered a secure and lucrative environment for investment. He advocated expansion of trade and greater cooperation in all other areas between Pakistan and the host countries.

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inacia Lula da Silva, promised to send a delegation of government officials and businessmen to Pakistan to identify areas of mutual interest. A vice-president of the Sao Paulo Trade and Commercial Association spoke of the possibilities of cooperation in the energy, oil, and gas sectors. Officials of the two governments signed an agreement to cooperate in fighting drug trafficking.

Nothing noteworthy by way of accords or even MoUs materialized in Argentina. The general addressed the Argentine Council for International Relations and explained Pakistan’s stand on various issues as mentioned above.

Mexican president, Vincente Fox, said his people welcomed Musharraf with “open arms,” and that he should think of Mexico as his home. He said Mexico would soon open an embassy in Pakistan, and that he himself would go to Islamabad to inaugurate it. The two sides agreed to have a joint commission to explore possibilities of expanded trade and economic cooperation between them. They also agreed to waive the visa requirement for the holders of diplomatic passports. They signed an MoU to work together to establish the mechanics of more frequent consultation between their two governments.

It may now be appropriate to ask if General Musharraf reaped benefits for Pakistan as a result of his travels described above. The answer would have to be that he brought home nothing of any significance that might be visible to the naked eye. That he made secret pacts with any of the heads of government he visited, which would result in substantial benefit to Pakistan, is wholly unlikely. How are we then to justify the investment of time, money, and effort that went into his diplomatic ventures?

It has become customary in certain quarters to say that Musharraf’s foreign visits have wrought for him the image of a world statesman and, collaterally, enhanced Pakistan’s image abroad. Mir Zafrullah Jamali would have us believe that the general had “unimaginably high” prestige abroad. President Bush has called Musharraf his “friend” and, in moments of abandon, referred to him as a world leader.

It is probably true that he is well received in official circles in many countries. He goes out there as the president of a Muslim country and says he is fighting terrorism; that he opposes the fundamentalist, extremist, and militant versions of Islam; that he stands for enlightened moderation; and that he is leading his people on the path of progressive democracy. No one should be surprised if some of his listeners out there say: “you are a good man, Musharraf, the kind of Muslim we like.” What else can they say?

Yet, that is not the universal response. There are plenty of sceptics among the more discerning observers both in Pakistan and abroad. Some of them feel that he plays both sides of the street against the middle. There are others who do not approve of his credentials and style of governance. In a comment on December 6, 2004, The Times (London) referred to him as “a career army officer who presides over one of the world’s most thoroughly militarized states.” More often than not, comments about him and Pakistan in the major American newspapers are unflattering.

We have already referred to the high financial cost and low benefits of the general’s foreign visits. Costs to the country’s political system may be considerably heavier. There is nothing that he accomplished in the Philippines, Brazil, and Argentina that Pakistan’s ambassadors in these countries could not have brought about. By appropriating the conduct of foreign relations, he is undermining the ministry of foreign affairs and the country’s ambassadors abroad. He is diminishing the prime minister. Who in foreign governments will pay any attention to him when it is known that General Musharraf is the real plenipotentiary in Pakistan’s foreign as well as domestic affairs?

General Musharraf insists on being an active president. In addition, he is chief of the army staff. One may then wonder how he can take so much time out to go abroad and who “minds the store” when he is away. I think the answer is that the “store,” called the federation of Pakistan, is increasingly falling into disrepair. Urgent problems (such as provincial autonomy, sharing of financial and water resources, sectarian violence, revolts in Balochistan and the tribal areas in the northwest, among others) are simply left unresolved.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.

E-mail: anwarsyed@cox.net

PAKISTAN has been complementing its penal code and law of evidence to bring them “in conformity with the injunctions of Islam”; prevent “terrorism, sectarian violence and for speedy trial of heinous offences”; punish defiling of the Holy Quran or the name of the Holy Prophet (PBUH); and for “outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens” with malicious intent.

For good measure, three new sections (298-A,B,C) have also been added to the penal code to punish an Ahmadi if he “poses, directly or indirectly, as a Muslim or in any manner whatsoever outrages the religious feelings of Muslims” or if he uses Islamic “epithets, descriptions and titles”.

All these laws were promulgated by General Ziaul Haq in 1979 through a series of Hudood Ordinances. The Anti-Terrorism Act which raised penalties for some offences like kidnapping for ransom and gang-rape and making them liable to trial by special courts through shorter procedures came into force in 1997 in Nawaz Sharif’s second term as prime minister.

That each of these new laws and amendments to the old penal code has failed to achieve the purpose for which they were enacted is agreed on all hands. The latest and the last word on it, however, has come from the new Chief Justice of Pakistan. He admits that justice has become “elusive” and the “man in the street is dismayed and disillusioned”, shaking the judicial hierarchy to its foundations.

Ziaul Haq’s Hudood ordinances and other Islamic amendments he made to the penal code have been used more to persecute the weak than punish the criminals. This is not just a general opinion but a frequent finding of the courts, including the Federal Shariat Court established by Ziaul Haq himself. The same is generally true of the prosecutions and trials under the anti-terrorism law.

Twenty-six years after the introduction of the Hudood laws and eight years after the passage of anti-terror legislation it was left to the just-sworn-in Chief Justice to lament that the country had lost its moral moorings. It shouldn’t rest there. Mr Iftikhar Chaudhry is going to preside over Pakistan’s judiciary for a number of years to come. He has no reason, as he himself put it, to crave for a high office or to seek ascendancy over others. He is already at the top. “They” cannot bring him down but he should himself step down if asked to go through yet another oath. It now lies in his power to bring the “elusive” justice within the reach of the common man. In fact his address at the full-court reference for his predecessor echoes Faiz’s famous verse: “Baney hain ahlehawas mudai bhi aur munsif bhi, kisey wakil kareny kis sey munsfi chaheyn.” It is impossible to convey the depth of the poet’s anguish but in essence Faiz lamented six decades ago what CJ Chaudhry now laments: when men of ambition (or lust) become the prosecutors and judges as well where to find a pleader and from whom to seek justice?

The retiring Chief Justice Nazim Siddiqi (one expects he leaves the Supreme Court to retire and not, like his predecessor, become the Chief Election Commissioner) couldn’t be more right when he said in his parting remarks that the survival of democracy as well as of the country depends solely on the performance of the judiciary, for societies without justice must vanish.

One half of Pakistan’s society vanished in 1971. Democracy in the remaining half since then has been in its death throes. Many have tended to blame the politicians, the military, the bureaucracy and, inevitably, the proverbial foreign hand. Truly speaking, all of them must share the blame including the judiciary which failed to try and punish persons named in the Hamood-ur-Rahman Commission report or the East Pakistan crisis.

The country’s Election Commission has invariably been headed by a judge, serving or retired, of the Supreme Court (the last incumbent was a retired Chief Justice) and all its members have also been high court judges. Yet no referendum or election has ever been acclaimed as free and fair but for the one held in 1970.

The fairness of that election gave rise to cynical remarks which still makes the rounds that never try to have fair elections for it would dismember whatever is left of the country. The poignancy of it lies in the lack of realization that the country wouldn’t have broken up if the elections held before 1970 were also to be fair and regular.

The 1970 elections were fair and free because the CEC Justice Sattar was an independent judge and President Yahya was too detached or unconcerned to interfere. On the side of the cynics is however the tragic fact that honest Sattar was assassinated in the turmoil in East Pakistan before it became Bangladesh. The independence and honesty of Justice Sattar is no hearsay. This writer had supervized polls in Karachi as district magistrate under his direction when no one dared interfere.

Some recent events encourage a thought that the judiciary has turned over a new leaf. Its first test would soon arise in the local, and later in the national, elections in 2007 or, may be, earlier. Nobody expects election to be either free or fair. The parties, candidates, officials all will try to rig them. Only the judges in the Election Commission can prove them wrong.

The chairman and members of the Commission are secure in their jobs. If the Commission is able to impart the same sense of security to the executive officials working for it in the run up to the elections and in supervizing the actual polling, they too would be, by and large, impartial.

That would be the judiciary’s great contribution to democracy. But the original and real purpose of its existence is to dispense expeditious and even-handed justice. That involves a large hierarchy of subordinate courts over which the Supreme Court and high courts exercise control but in name only.

The number of pending cases in the supreme court alone, according to the outgoing Chief Justice, is 30,000. The number in the high courts and lower courts could presumably be three million and more lying buried in the police stations and in the investigation and prosecution offices. These numbers will keep growing unless all the special laws or amendments to the penal code made after 1977 are revoked and the courts established outside the normal hierarchy to control terror or to enforce Shariat laws are abolished. The special laws and courts have hardly sent anyone to the gallows but frenzied mobs have lynched quite a few and revenge has made many rot in prison for years together.

Further, look at the time the Supreme Court, and before it the Lahore High Court, devoted to the question which law — ordinary penal or Hudood — was to apply to the Mukhtaran Mai case and whether the appeal against conviction by the anti-terrorist court lay in the high court or in the Shariat Court.

The courts at all levels would never be able to cope with the cases before them for their number would keep growing as crime and discontent in society increase. The permanent remedy lies in conciliation and adjudication at the village or town level through an elected council or call it panchayat but not of the kind that figures in the Mukhtaran Mai case. An elected panchayat (five impartial and honourable men) as a forum of justice is native to the northern part of the subcontinent and is so working in India.

Then, the structure and jurisdictions of the courts have to be set right. Even the Supreme Court, as Mr. Nazim Siddiqui said, has to contend with frivolous petitions in the time left to it after dealing with constitutional and political cases. No doubt, the Sindh High Court today has more judges than Karachi at one time had magistrates and the pending cases before all of them put together were less than the number pending before the Supreme Court today. But more on this complex and sensitive subject may be left to be said on another occasion.