| November 16, 2005 | Wednesday | Shawwal 13, 1426 |
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Banking exams
Nature’s fury
Regulating architects
SMS donations
AWACs deal
Bureaucracy’s working
Dead phone
Army aviation pilots
Corruption and relief effort
OUR response to help the quake victims was immediate. But we must remember that this will have to be sustained in the form of cash donations in the months and years ahead. Each of us should take a decision today that henceforth out of every month’s earnings, an amount will be set aside by us and regularly contributed towards the relief effort.
If the head of every family decides that a monthly contribution of Rs.10 per head in the family would be made towards the earthquake relief effort, on the basis of a population of 150 million, we could be donating Rs. 1.5 billion per month or Rs.18 billion a year — But surely many of us can give much more than that each month.
A lot of us are making donations to numerous NGOs because we trust them, and feel that our funds will be spent on the affectees. But we should also remember that the government is also collecting funds in the “Presidents Earthquake Relief Fund”. Information on this fund can be checked on the internet on the home page of the President of Pakistan, which can be accessed by writing www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk. There is a quick link at the bottom right of the page to the relief fund.
At the time of the creation of the earthquake relief fund, both the president and the prime minister had announced there would be complete transparency, and the amount collected was to be announced daily.
Unfortunately, this is not being done on a consistent basis. The recent “jholi barao” drive in Rawalpindi when cash was collected from passers — by, motorists, and shopkeepers was a case in point — very moving, extensively covered in the media, but no announcement of what was collected. It is this kind of approach that creates credibility problems and inhibits many from contributing much more.
In order to ensure transparency and credibility that the collections are going to the correct account, I suggest every donation received should be listed and a running total provided daily. The details of the listing should give date of deposit, receipt number, place, name and donor.
Inclusion of date of deposit of donation will help to ensure that banks collecting the cash donations credit collections promptly to the government account. This will serve as a check on banks being tempted to park the funds for days on end in their own banks earning interest in the bargain. To control this, the earthquake Fund manager in consultation with the State Bank of Pakistan, should set a time limit for transfer of deposit from bank to relief fund.
The site currently mentions that donations abroad can be deposited at named Pakistani banks abroad or at Pakistani missions. What does not appear to have been taken into account is that this is the IT age, and people expect answers while sitting at their desktop and pointing their cursor at the links on the home page.
Therefore, in order to be more meaningful, the site should provide links to the name and full address and account details of the banks; likewise links should be made giving similar information for the Pakistani missions, with their contacts and addresses. With regard to the collections of donations, this is the electronic age, and transfers are can be quicker if the bank’s swift code and Iban code are provided.
There should be an on-line method of making payments to the fund through credit cards so that spontaneous donations could be collected. The State Bank of Pakistan or any international bank should be able to provide the assistance needed to make on-line donations possible.
I hope the collection agencies abroad (i.e., Pakistani missions) are aware of the methodology of dealing with the collections and follow a standardized procedure for the receipting system. This comment is not as bizarre as it sounds based on one’s own experience of another time, another collection.
I refer to the time a cyclone hit Keti Bunder and the Indus delta region in 1999. The Sindh government had placed a large advertisement in the newspapers about the creation of a relief fund. Collection centres were named, including the office of the Sindh Board of Revenue. I drove there to make a donation. I noted that my donation was the second in a handwritten register being maintained for the purpose.
The official told me that receipts had not yet been printed, but said proof of the collection was the entry of my donation in the register. The same day, I went to Hyderabad, where I went to the commissioner’s office to make another donation. As it was a Sunday, the secretariat was pretty deserted, but I was finally led to the office of an assistant commissioner.
This gentleman was honest enough to tell me that he only got to know through the newspaper advertisement that his office was supposed to collect donations. However, as he had no written instructions or procedures to follow in this matter, he declined to take the donation.
Sohail Osman Ali
Via email
I DRAW your attention towards the examination standard of the Institute of Bankers Pakistan (IBP) pertaining to the subjects of accounting, financial management foreign exchange, and international trade.
The papers are not set according to a balanced policy. Examinees can get through the examinations by memorizing only a few set patterns of questions. The examinations so that questions must carry practical and theoretical portions in order to check the depth and clarity of the examinees.
In accounting, a complete question should be asked on basic and important accounting concepts/principles and another question should be set from international accounting principles in order to keep the examinees abreast of international trends.
Moreover, accounting for banks and their financial statements, analysis and interpretation of financial statements, cash flow statement, management accounting-budgeting, accounting cycles, cost accounting cycles, standard costing, and variance analysis, journals, ledgers, double entry, books of original entries, partnership, joint stock companies, bill of exchange should not be ignored.
In financial management a full-fledged question should be set on relevant prudential regulations and financial management concepts. The remaining questions should include risk and return, financial statement analysis, working capital management, accounts receivable and inventory management, cash flow, time value of money, capital budgeting, most important assets and liabilities management in bank, etc.
In foreign exchange the topics of international economic law, WTO, UCP 500, URC, INCO terms, guarantees, close-outs, financial futures, spot forward rates, over-brought, sold positions, predictions, investment calculation should be included with a balanced strategy of practical solutions combined with theoretical explanations.
MUHAMMAD IQBAL
Lahore
THE conduct of some TV personalities regarding interpretations of the earthquake has left much to be desired.
According to one such individual, the earthquake is a sign of divine wrath. I found his apocalyptical approach highly imprudent. Such talk is no different from how American Christian evangelical leaders talk.
Without batting any eyelid, this individual also declared that the tsunami, Katrina, Rita and the earthquake were an outcome of the sins committed by the people.
How very strange that none of these clairvoyant visionaries experienced any of these signs when massacres were taking place in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and most recently Niger, where thousands are dying every day due to drought and starvation.
May I ask why nature’s wrath victimizes only the have-nots and those too mostly living in the Third World May I know whose hands are soaked with Iraq’s blood, who is slitting the throats of innocent Afghans, who is responsible for systematically conducting the genocide of the Palestinian nation and who committed heinous crimes at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay
The sins of the people of Azad Kashmir and the northern areas is that their status in Pakistan is still ill-defined. They are extremely backward and have no proper access to even their own capital city. If anyone has committed a sin, its not the 86,000 poor souls who died in the quake but those fat cats sitting cozily in Islamabad with their crisp khaki clothes and the feudals of South Punjab and Sindh, where women are regularly gang-raped.
All our ‘experts’, soothsayers and prophets of doom are silent on these happenings. I fail to understand the senseless logic, the whimsical analysis and delusional thoughts being advocated on television channels following the earthquake.
It is simply spreading fanaticism and nothing else and is an insult to people’s intelligence.
DR SAULAT NAGI
Vienna, Austria
SECTIONS of the press have reported the freezing of bank accounts and follow-up actions against the architect of the Margalla Towers project (Nov 9). Buildings in this project were so poorly designed that the collapse pattern did not allow inmates to escape after the upper heap of rubble had settled.
It is a common observation that some architects are playing havoc with the lives of people by designing ill-ventilated, poorly connected and shoddily constructed accommodation in all urban centres of Pakistan.
The Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners (PCATP) is supposed to regulate the working of architects according to prescribed professional ethics. However, its past performance has been anything but satisfactory.
Some of its members can be found fleecing ordinary clients by charging heavy consultancy fee and delivering the poorest standards of service.
Most of the projects are never supervised by the architects which develop into death traps in their own right. The fate of Faiza Heights in Karachi is not very old when a whole multi-storeyed tower collapsed immediately after construction.
Architects, builders and building control officials have turned most of Karachi’s neighbourhoods into nightmares.
It is time PCATP woke up and checked its money-minting members who are busy playing with the lives of innocent people without restraint.
MRS H.N. KHAN
Karachi
AS part of the earthquake relief effort almost all cellular companies have announced an SMS-based donation collection scheme.
Within a few days of the campaign one company announced that it had already collected Rs 5 million. All such donations sent via SMS are subject to 15 per cent GST. This means that on the Rs5 million collected a total of Rs750,000 was charged as GST. The mobile companies will be able to benefit from this scheme because donations made to charities are tax-deductible.
Any amount collected as GST through this scheme should be contributed to the earthquake fund.
UMER ASIF
Nowhsera
THE protection of a country’s freedom is extremely important but the provision of food, clothes and shelter to its people has a higher priority. The government and Pakistani citizens, helped by the international community, are doing all they can to meet the requirements of the quake victims.
Some circles have criticized Pakistan’s recent deal with Sweden for six airborne early warning systems, saying the money should instead have been diverted to help the survivors of the calamity.
That Islamabad is alive to the need for balancing defence expenditure against social spending is evident from its decision to postpone the purchase of the F-16s and review the quantity to be ordered. One would still emphasize that our rulers should try to empathize with those living under an open sky without adequate food, sanitation and medication or those committing suicides due to poverty and apportion money accordingly.
As far as the AWACS are concerned, several factors ought to be considered. First, in view of the vastly unproved relations with China and the on-going peace talks with Pakistan, India should have no need to spend massively on AWACS, F-18s or other planes, Patriot anti-missile systems, submarines, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and so on. However, it is persisting with that, most of which is Pakistan-specific.
Second, as anyone who has been reading the “50 Years Ago Today” column in this newspaper would know, many Pakistani leaders since independence have drawn India into peace parleys after much persuasion but with no outcome. The present round was undertaken by New Delhi only after intense western pressure but hasn’t progressed much despite President Musharraf’s many unilateral concessions.
Third, Dr Manmohan Singh and earlier his defence minister had shown their insincerity towards Pakistan by trying very hard to tarnish our image or to pre-empt any nuclear collaboration with America similar to that offered to India during their last summer’s visit to the US.
Fourth, during that trip Dr Singh had also tried to scuttle the gas pipeline project with Iran in apparent deference to Washington’s wishes. Furthermore, India had no hesitation in betraying its good friend Iran by voting for taking Tehran to the UNSC over the nuclear standoff.
Therefore, we cannot compromise on our defence preparedness. The US or western European countries didn’t wind up their armed forces or dramatically reduce their military budgets after the Cold War despite a considerable improvement in their relations with Russia.
Coming now to the Pakistan Air Force, it has many things to its credit. The PAF was probably the last air force in the world to ground its fleet of US-made, Korean-war vintage F-86 Sabre jets that it had used exceedingly well in the two wars with India and won praise from western commentators. Even now, it is among the last few forces to be using the French-built Mirage III and V fighters.
During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, one of our young pilots flying an F-16 had forced a Russian general intruding into Pakistan airspace in a comparable jet fighter to land here. Incidentally, that general had gone on to become a vice-president of Russia.
All of this goes to show the PAF’s judicious and masterly use of its resources. Hence, we must not grudge the order for the Swedish early warning systems without which the PAF will be almost like a sitting duck against any possible Indian Phalcon AWACS-controlled warfare.
For many years such warning and control systems were not available to Pakistan due to western sanctions and suspicions. We should not lose the opportunity to acquire these aeroplanes.
KHALID NAQSHBANDI
Karachi
ACCORDING to a press advertisement (Nov 3), the electronic government directorate of the ministry of information technology has invited sealed bids for supply of hardware for e-government projects for two federal ministries and one division.
Based on personal experience, I can say with reference to relevant documents that the attitude to public welfare and working efficiency of at least one of the two ministries does not qualify even for a mechanical typewriter.
A simple problem of public interest, accepted as such in June 2002 under the signatures of a Grade 21 officer, is still pending with this ministry since January 2002.
I have been submitting applications to ascertain progress with every change of minister but in vain.
Now, the ministry has stopped acknowledging receipt of my applications. Obviously, the public servants concerned are not prepared to serve the public interest, and they do not care for ministerial orders unless personal gain or loss is involved.
This unfortunate attitude of many civil servants is one of the major causes of failure of successive governments to tame the bureaucracy.
As a senior citizen I appeal to the president to constitute a high-powered committee to evaluate the achievements and working efficiency of each ministry and division before authorizing import of costly hardware and related facilities for super-fast e-governance.
M. AKRAM NIAZI
Rawalpindi
MY telephone 692 4065 has been dead for more than 40 days. Complaints have been registered daily on 18 and the exchange’s complaint cell. I have also visited the North Karachi telephone exchange personally a number of times and registered my complaint.
In addition to this, I have also contacted the supervisor of the North Karachi Telephone Exchange several time and each day he promises to get the problem rectified.
Moreover, I have also lodged a complain at phone number 106 on Oct. 27 and was given the complaints number 247. My phone is still out of order. So much for PTCL’s customer service.
MUHAMMAD ALI SABIR
Karachi
THIS is with reference to Ayaz Amir’s column “The best and the worst” (Oct. 28). He has spoken of people who contributed to the earthquake relief effort.
Unsung heroes need to be highlighted and he did it perfectly well. However, I must add that the portrait he depicted was a bit sketchy. He failed to mention a single sentence about the armed forces. This created an imbalance in the otherwise reasonable column. The armed forces are doing a lot and in a very professional manner. Army aviation pilots are tirelessly flying to provide relief and to evacuate the injured while military engineers have worked non-stop to clear blocked roads. Their efforts should have been mentioned by Mr Amir.
KAMIL ARIF SATTI
Islamabad
LETTERS appearing in these columns on the subjects of corruption and relief effort need to be given serious thought. NGOs have to spend so much on salaries and overheads that a substantial portion of donations is spent on these non-essentials.
The set-ups of these NGOs in terms of infrastructure, pay packages of employees and perks to the top executives consume money which could otherwise be used for the purposes for which it was actually donated.
The government needs to be extremely vigilant, especially in the hour of crisis when billions are pouring in from all over. The money should not be squandered. Each and every penny should be spent judiciously and on those who are in need.
Another point which needs to be highlighted is the exorbitant profit suppliers of relief goods are making. The donations should not go into the pockets of unscrupulous people and a strict check should be kept by the monitoring agencies.
Items required in the quake-affected areas should be sold at pre-quake prices or even lower prices.
Such action on the part of the government will ensure optimum utilization of the funds, which are scarce even now and may reduce further as time passes.
ARIF MAJEED
Karachi
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