THE function of opposition parties in a democracy is to examine the government’s legislative proposals, its policies and programmes, show what, if anything, is wrong with them, and suggest improvements. Next, it is to review the actual execution of the laws and policies the parliament has approved, oversee the working of the administration, point out and criticize its faults and failures. In all of this the opposition is educating public opinion with an eye to the next election.

Criticism of the government may be softened if the country is at war and its very survival is threatened. But if the war is one in which its integrity is not at stake, as was the case with America’s wars in Korea and Vietnam, and currently with the war in Iraq, and if the conflict has become long and drawn out, the opposition may resume its normal function of scrutinizing government operations.

Oversight and intelligent criticism require investigation, study, and deliberation on the part of opposition spokesmen. The great majority of the opposition members in our own parliament have no desire to invest the time and energy needed to offer competent assessments of the government’s proposals and performance. As often as not, they will stay away from the house, forcing the speaker to adjourn meetings for lack of quorum. When they do take their seats in the chamber, they give more time to desk-thumping and other frivolities than to debating issues on the day’s agenda.

A natural disaster, more devastating than war, hit Pakistan on October 8, leaving nearly a hundred thousand persons dead, many more wounded, and two to three million homeless. Nothing like it has happened before.

During the weeks and months following India’s partition (1947), several million Muslims were chased out of their homes in Indian Punjab and driven across the border into West Punjab (Pakistan). They had to be resettled. But that task consisted mainly of placing them in homes, and allotting them jobs, lands, shops, and other properties, which Hindus and Sikhs, driven out to India, had left behind. Yet, it took several years to complete.

The task confronting the nation now is immense. New homes, businesses, towns, and the infrastructure have to be built for the people rendered homeless. It will necessarily take longer, and require staggering outlays, compared to what the post-partition rehabilitation of refugees did.

At the present time, the army, some segments of the civil administration, NGOs, voluntary groups, contingents from numerous foreign governments, and certain religious organizations are doing what they can to provide urgently needed relief to the stricken people. Resettling them will come later. The opposition parties in the country say they wish to be participants in the process and criticize the government for ignoring them. One may want to know what exactly they can or want to do.

One of the opposition’s complaints is that they have not been “taken into confidence.” Normally, taking someone into confidence means telling him what has happened and what is proposed to be done about it. In the present case, there is no secret to be revealed about the event or the amount of devastation wrought. Concerned individuals all over the world, who read newspapers or watch television, know what happened.

Now the second part of this proposition: during the first couple of weeks after October 8, the government itself did not know the specific details of what it was going to do. It could not have taken the opposition into confidence regarding its plans because, at the time, it did not have any.

It is not inconceivable that its plans are still, and will continue to be, in the process of being formulated, tested, revised, and remade. It is not reasonable to say that it should have been ready with workable plans the moment, or even a week after, the tragedy had struck. Neither this government, nor any of its predecessors, has ever had the experience of handling a disruption of this magnitude. There were, thus, no precedents to fall back upon.

The opposition’s second major criticism is that the government’s response to the calamity was slow in coming. By noontime on October 8 everyone who had not been sleeping knew that a tragedy of immense proportions had befallen parts of Azad Kashmir and NWFP. Even if nobody in Muzaffarabad or Mansehra had been left with a cell phone, an army helicopter flying over these places could have reported the extent of the damage. Yet, according to some reports, General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz did not become aware of the magnitude of the disaster until a whole day, and in some versions even two days, after the event. Rescue operations even in accessible places did not begin for two or three days.

The reason for the tardy response (if reports to that effect are correct) is not indifference on the part of General Musharraf and others in high places. It is to be found in the relatively low levels of competence, and inertia, in government and other organizations in the public sector (including our parliament and political parties). It takes all of them unusually long to get their wits together and, then, their feet moving.

If my remembrance is correct, even the Pakistan army, said to be the most efficient of organizations in the country, was slow by at least a few hours in responding to the Indian invasion of Lahore on the morning of September 6, 1965.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad of the Jamaat-i-Islami and some of the other opposition leaders say that it is wrong to deploy the army for the work of rehabilitation and reconstruction, which should, instead, be done by the government’s civilian organs and agencies. Some of them have said also that the federal government should retire from this project and hand it over, along with the foreign and domestic funds contributed for the purpose, to the governments of Azad Kashmir and NWFP.

I see little merit in these proposals. According to the Economist (London) of a few weeks ago, the government of Pakistan is probably the most highly militarized in the world. Which is to say that its officers, especially those in the higher ranks, have taken far too many posts in the civilian sector, where ruling authority, power, and privilege abound, but where they were not needed.

Discounting Kargil, which was a relatively minor affair, our army has not fought a war for 34 years, and it is less likely than ever before to fight one in the foreseeable future. Our men in uniform, thus, do not have a whole lot to do besides some exercises to remain professionally current and physically fit. Judging by their disappearing waistlines, some of them in the upper echelons don’t do even that much. They get paid every month nevertheless. What is then wrong with putting them to work for the good of the country in its hour of need? Note also that the army has not only the manpower, including engineers and all kinds of other technicians, but also much of the needed equipment, which other government departments do not have in the same measure.

The idea of handing over the tasks of reconstruction and the available funds to the governments of Azad Kashmir and NWFP is inefficacious, because neither of them has the requisite capacity. Barring Islamabad and a few other stretches of territory, every place in Pakistan is part of one of its provinces. But that does not make every occurrence a provincial subject. In the situation under discussion, the dimensions of the problem, scope of the response that has come forth, and magnitude of the resources needed to meet it make the undertaking a national concern.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim and his colleagues in the ARD said a while ago that they would cooperate with the government in the rehabilitation of earthquake victims, if Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif were first invited back to the country and the charges against them withdrawn. Columnists, writing in this newspaper, have periodically urged General Musharraf to let the exiled leaders of the “mainstream” parties return and participate in politics for the country’s greater good. That may not be a bad idea. But its relevance to the work of rehabilitation and reconstruction is not apparent. Neither Benazir Bhutto nor Nawaz Sharif has any known expertise in mobilizing persons and resources to deal with the aftermath of a calamity.

They could perhaps persuade their followers to come out and help. These folks might be helpful if their ranks included a good number of masons, bricklayers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and various other technicians and tradesmen, willing to take leave from their normal work. Otherwise they would simply be in the way.

What can the opposition then do to help? Before going further, I should like to emphasize that nowhere in the world is it the opposition’s prerogative to make plans and settle programmes for the government to implement. At best, it may make suggestions.

After the current relief operation is completed, the process of rehabilitation in its several dimensions will run for several years. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is trying to put together a committee, including opposition nominees, to oversee the process. That sounds like a good plan. In addition, the opposition members in parliament can continue to perform their usual oversight role with regard to this enterprise as they may do with regard to all other government operations.

Some broad issues will have to be settled before the nitty-gritty of reconstruction begins. For instance, planners will have to figure out where and what kind of structures are to be built to replace the ones that have been lost, who will build them, and when. They will also have to decide whether survivors get homes and other properties comparable to those they have lost, and whether they will get them entirely free or pay for them to some extent. The opposition members, as well as the treasury, in parliament can debate these questions and contribute such wisdom as they may happen to have.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, US. Email: anwarsyed@cox.com

NO country is completely free of corruption. Generally speaking, the poorer a country the more corrupt it is. A political system which is unrepresentative and unaccountable makes it worse. Regrettably, Pakistan suffers from this double whammy. Corruption does not mean bribery alone.

Although taking or giving bribes is considered the most lowly form of corruption, more reprehensible are the favours extended to relatives, cronies and party loyalists at public expense. The most damaging aspect of this culture of favouritism includes the needless appointments to public offices, and that too, without judging merit.

Paradoxically, even those career civil/military servants and elected public representatives who neither take bribes nor misuse or squander public funds see no evil in making appointments in their own discretion and not on merit that has been impartially determined. Grabbing state land at nominal prices is the way they get rich without being called corrupt.

Causing a one-time loss to the public treasury is a malfeasance but one of a lesser degree than burdening it with the lifetime pay, perks and pension of an official who has no work to do or given the work is unable to do it. Unnecessary and undeserved appointments have made Pakistan’s political establishment and public services not just unwieldy but also corrupt. If both were to be cut by half, efficiency would go up and corruption come down. At present, the cause of concern is not the prevalence of corruption for it has always been there but that it is growing.

At the beginning of 2003, the National Accountability Bureau launched an anti-corruption strategy in a blaze of publicity which the president acclaimed was “truly analytical”. NAB’s “consistent and untiring efforts” to tackle corruption, the president then said, were “being complemented by a functioning and working public sector.”

The NAB chief, in turn, undertook to implement his strategy (which, in his modesty, he said had been given to him by the people of Pakistan) “without any compunctions and compromises”. The strategy was talked about a great deal but was hardly grasped by anyone — not even by the “stakeholders and policymakers” on whom the NAB chief General Munir Hafiez relied for implementation. It hasn’t been heard of since.

It would be useful for General Hafiez, or his successor, now to find out after three years what instructions, if any at all, were issued for the implementation of the strategy by the policymakers — including the speaker for the legislature, chief ministers for the executive and the chief justices for the judiciary — and what impact their actions had on the state of corruption. It hasn’t gone beyond ritual.

Whatever NAB’s finding, the public perception and experience of the man on the street is that corruption, and maladministration that flows from it, has, in fact, increased. This perception is also borne out by the worldwide opinion polls and surveys conducted by Transparency International.

In the year 2002, Pakistan’s score on Transparency’s table was 2.6 in the range of 0 to 10 — 10 being “highly clean” and 0 “highly corrupt”. After the introduction of NAB’s strategy Pakistan’s score fell to 2.1 in 2004 and remains the same in 2005. This means that corruption had increased.

The other two countries of the subcontinent are faring better. Bangladesh which with a score of 0.4 in 2001 was rated as the most corrupt country in the world has since then risen to 1.7. India since the year 2000 has consistently stayed in the range of 2.7 to 2.9 — not at all enviable but better than Pakistan’s rating. Bracketed with Pakistan are Sudan and Somalia, both Islamic and African. With India are Iran and Bosnia.

Why corruption in Pakistan remains stubbornly high and, in fact, has gone up is no enigma: it is because the innovations in the political and administrative systems have opened up new avenues of corruption.

Under the new electoral law including the condition of graduation for election to the parliament and indirect election of women, the gerrymandering of the districts and election of nazims by the councillors, money and profitable offices are believed to have been freely traded. Some nazims to get elected are said to have spent as much as Rs 50 million.

Quite obviously, this would spread corruption further and career officials conducting the elections and working with the nazims too would get involved. It is, therefore, no surprise that the audit of the district governments by the local government commission (by no means complete and perfect) has revealed that as much as 40 per cent of the development funds were either misused or misappropriated.

Corruption is somewhat lower in India because its electoral and administrative systems have remained stable and the country spends more on education but less on defence than Pakistan does. On education, as a percentage of national income, Pakistan does not spend even half as much as India does. As a result, India ranks higher on the UNDP’s human development index just by about the same margin as it ranks lower on Transparency International’s corruption index.

The key to reduction in corruption lies in stable political and administrative systems and then in greater emphasis on human development.

In Pakistan, the systems have been shaken to the roots and still remain in a flux and the expenditure on education as a percentage of national income has been falling. In such a situation, no anti-corruption strategy can succeed.