| April 30, 2006 | Sunday | Rabi-us-Sani 1, 1427 |
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Ensuring citizen’s security
Looming wheat crisis
Foreign visits: PCB chief’s version
OGDC privatization
Good governance
NIC card hassles
NBP insurance scheme
Administrative reform
THIS refers to the letters of Mr Manzoor Ali Isran of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai University, Khairpur, and Mr Kamran Naim of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (HEC) entitled “HEC policies” (April 2 and 10).
Mr Isran points out that the HEC has introduced reforms without reforming the universities. And the bad governance of these universities is hampering the reforms. Although the HEC is the funding body of the universities, it leaves the problem of the governance of the universities to their statutory bodies like the syndicate and academic council, and the chancellors, i.e., the provincial governors.
Here a question arises: if in a situation where the elected members of the syndicate and the administration put together transgress their powers, and the HEC shifts its responsibility in these matters to the Governor’s House, which even does not bother to acknowledge any complaints in this regard, how can reforms be introduced in Pakistani universities?
The Economist evaluates good universities on the following yardsticks: Are they upholding freedom of speech and intellectual vigour? Are they training enough scientists and engineers? Are they encouraging social mobility? Our universities should also be evaluated and reformed on these lines.
By promoting a culture of research, the HEC plans to bring our universities in the league of world class universities. But how this objective can be achieved when the fundamental requirement of a good university — academic freedom — is suppressed? Anila Zainub, in her review of David Horwitz’s book Academics in America (Books and Authors, April 9) defines academic freedom, as the freedom to teach and learn a particular theory, holding certain political and intellectual beliefs or disagreeing with the state or university policies.
In contravention of the universal practice of academic freedom, Sindh University is the most obvious example of its violation. In October 2004, four teachers, one of them a senior professor and the only winner of “the Best Teachers Award” in the faculty of social sciences, responding to allegations levelled against them in a circular issued by the teachers association office-bearers, wrote an open letter to them in which they advised them not to be party to the declining standards of education, precipitated by a lifelong leader of the syndicate.
If that syndicate leader objected to that letter, as the norms of democracy suggest, he could have issued a rebuttal to the letter writers or even sued them. However, exercising his clout over the syndicate and the administration, the letter writers were charge-sheeted for misconduct under the Removal of Services Ordinance 2000. Their ordeal still continues.
In another incident, one of the open letter writers opposed the introduction of the four-year bachelor’s degree programme in Sindh University. He considered the programme highly unsuitable for Sindh. He was supported by two young colleagues. This was an opinion, not a heresy or rebellion. Now these teachers have been singled out. Their papers for any appointment are dispatched with adverse remarks.
In this situation where the HEC is a silent spectator, and the Governor’s House least concerned, and the elected members of the syndicate of a university and its administration are completely plaint, the HEC ideal of making our universities world class institutions will remain a pipedream.
DR MEHTAB ALI SHAH
Sindh University, Jamshoro
THE recent loss of lives in Nishtar Park and the Faizan-i-Madina mosque gatherings have shown many deficiencies in our approach to collective security. This includes the authorities’ lack of concern or foresight, as also of those managing such events. In addition is the absence of knowledge among the ordinary people and even security personnel of what to do in the aftermath of a disaster.
While the facts about the Nishtar Park tragedy are far from clear until now, some of those that have emerged from the stampede at the Faizan-i-Madina mosque are mind-boggling. For instance, how did such a minor occurrence as the falling of a child on the staircase lead to a major catastrophe? Another one is the closure of two out of three entry/exit points to the place, for which the management of the park nextdoor appears to be responsible.
Yet other factors are the apparent presence of only one staircase that is supposed to cater to the movement of thousands of women and children and the refusal to deploy male security personnel (since female ones seem nonexistent) or, after the stampede, to let men evacuate the injured women. It should be noted that some very reputable religious scholars consider it permissible for unrelated men (“na-mehram”) to provide first aid or medical treatment to women if female medical professionals aren’t available.
This also reminds one of an incident that occurred a few weeks back in a girls’ college of Karachi having a couple of thousand students. Although it was not publicised, a very reliable source divulged that what turned out to be a hoax call was received, warning of a bomb due to blow up over there anytime. The college staff did not inform the students of this in order to avoid creating panic and a stampede.
However, they went around telling all the students to leave the building immediately. Nevertheless, it took nearly 15 minutes for the evacuation, which is too long for such an emergency. A major reason for this delay was that there are only two fairly narrow staircases leading from the first to the second floor of the three-storied structure. The ground floor (which doesn’t have any classrooms) is connected to the first with an additional, much broader one that appears adequate.
The college authorities have received such calls on a few other occasions as well during the last several years and have repeatedly urged the senior management to have another staircase built or some other solution found, so that in case of a real emergency the lives of thousands of girls are not endangered. However, nothing has been done until now.
The government officials and private citizens overseeing such large gatherings of people must act promptly and conscientiously to ensure that the security requirements of educational institutions, places of worship, office buildings, highrise apartments and factories, etc., are being fulfilled so that tragedies can be averted.
A CONCERNED CITIZEN
Karachi
FOUR years ago there was a wheat crisis in Pakistan. Not because the country was short of wheat reserves but due to mismanagement. The government could not make use of existing reserves and on the arrival of the new wheat crop, there was no purchase on the part of the government and the farmers sold their crop at RS200 to 250/ kg although the official support price was RS400/40kg.The profit went into the pockets of stockers and smugglers. The repercussions of this folly were that cotton was badly affected, rural poverty, disease, hunger and unemployment increased while agricultural productivity decreased.
Now once again we are in the same situation. This time the government has allowed the import of millions of tons of wheat from abroad and the local farmers are not able to sell their crop as PASSCO and the food department are reluctant to purchase wheat. The farmers of Sindh have sold their crop at RS350-360/40 kg and now the same is happening in Punjab although the official procurement price is fixed at RS415/40kg.
Every agricultural nation whether developing or not has a system of “protective trade”, i.e., it imposes high tariffs on the import of such raw material as is produced indigenously to protect its farming community. The EU gives subsidy of about 370 billion euros a year to its farmers and has anti-dumping laws. Japan has imposed very high tariff on the import of rice. In Pakistan, however, the case is the reverse .We have instead removed the existing 20 per cent duty on the import of wheat while nobody is there to purchase wheat from local farmers. Instead of subsidising inputs and encouraging farmers to grow more, our policy makers are spending the nation’s precious foreign currency resources on wheat import.
In our neighbourhood Indian Punjab alone provides food to the entire country and exports as well. Those at the helms of affairs should learn a lesson from history that nations depending on food supplies from abroad can hardly make any progress. The government should ensure the procurement of wheat at Rs415/40kg and not play havoc with the lives of 66.7 per cent of our population living in villages and solely dependant on agriculture for their livelihood.
MALIK ABBAS RAZA ALI
Lahore
I REFER to Mr. Rehan Siddiqui’s comment (April 14), “Shaharyar most travelled PCB supremo”, in which Mr Siddiqui has implied that I am a hedonistic traveller who misses no opportunity to undertake all-expense paid junkets at huge cost to the Pakistan Cricket Board. Allow me to state the facts for the benefit of your readers:
Visits to ICC and ACC meetings require my obligatory presence as chairman, PCB. The fact that I have been given the honour of being chairman of the ICC governance committee and the ACC finance committee necessitates additional obligatory visits. These trips are sponsored by the host organisations at no cost to the PCB but require arduous travel followed by a hectic schedule.
Similarly, two visits to India for preparing Asia’s World Cup bid were attended by heads of all four Asian countries. The stay in New Delhi was hosted by BCCI and only the cost of travel was borne by PCB. These one-day meetings are a far cry from the expensive junkets to which Mr Siddiqui has referred.
As regards the visit to Abu Dhabi, the PCB’s budget was not debited with a single rupee and we returned with a cheque for US$7.5 million for earthquake relief. The invitations were made on behalf of the Abu Dhabi Cricket Association. They had generously invited all ten Test-playing chairmen of the Board for their inaugural match.
Similarly, my efforts in England had led to 400,000 pounds being collected for the dedication of the Pakistan Room at the Oval. I needed to finalise the takeover of the Pakistan Room which will be formally opened during the forthcoming Test match at the Oval on Aug 17. I claimed D.A. for only two working days of my weeks stay in London.
Having spent a lifetime in the foreign service, there is no allure for me to visit foreign countries. As an honorary and unsalaried chairman, I am entitled to take my leave when it suits me at no cost to the PCB.
Finally, the expenditure on cricket-related tours is not a burden on the tax-payer as PCB generates its own financing without taking a rupee from the national exchequer or the tax-payer.
SHAHARYAR M. KHAN
Chairman Pakistan Cricket Board, Lahore
VAST chunks of Pakistan’s land have been leased out to multinational companies for oil and gas exploration. What effect this will have in the future can easily be predicted. The government is now making concerted effort to sell a vital national asset, the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) with its vast fields and other assets, to foreign companies. Our political leaders and parliamentarians, irrespective of their party affiliations, must stand up to stop this act of recklessness which will cause irreparable long-term damage to Pakistan.
NAZIR AHMAD
Islamabad
THIS refers to Mr A.Z.K. Sherdil’s column entitled ‘Imperatives of good governance’ and Anjum Niaz’s article entitled ‘The rise and fall of the CSP’ in the same issue of Dawn (April 9). The former rues the demise of the all-powerful office of the DC while the latter has lamented the fall of the CSP.
The harsh reality is that the elite CSP has been mainly responsible, together with the army, the feudal lord and the mullah, for the present dismal state of the nation which is on the brink of a cataclysm. The CSP officers were the worst offenders of the lot in that they were the most well-educated and trained.
The abolition of the office of the DC and the commissioner is one of the two laudable actions of the present government, the other being the revival of a moribund economy. Cities and towns in most of the world are run by elected mayors who are answerable to their electorate and are assisted by competent professional managers. Here the situation was totally different. The DC and the commissioner were demi-gods running fiefdoms rather than acting as public servants. One wonders as to what scintillating achievements the former DCs and commissioners can stake a claim to that the abolition of their office is being made to look like a disaster.
Actually, when they ruled the roost, all kinds of crime, felonies and offences were as common as they are today. Law and order was a shambles and there was no protection available for the common man’s life, honour and property. I am sure that in 53 years or so the DCs could never ensure the supply of 100 per cent pure milk or even potable water, let alone curb major crime, their untrammelled powers notwithstanding. The great unwashed and the impoverished had hardly any access to the supercilious and standoffish DC or commissioner.
Except for the said offices, most of the senior officers in the federal and provincial governments still belong to the CSP. Had any of these officers ever behaved less pompously and stood up or resigned their posts on a matter of principle, things in Pakistan would have been much happier. We have had a number of railway accidents during the past few months in which scores of the nameless and the faceless were killed and many more maimed for life but the ‘Chairman Bahadur’, who is a CSP officer, has not thought it fit to resign. There is no shame and no accountability. Let us not forget the infamous trio of Ghulam Mohammad, Chaudhry Mohamad Ali and Iskander Mirza (all senior bureaucrats) who started the rot. And by the way, the CSP has not fallen at all.
I would like to ask all the retired CSPs to devote more time to gardening rather than mourning the loss of the office of the DC and the commissioner. They have had their time in the sun.
TANWEER-US-SAQALAN
Lahore
IT is sad to see the government having lost sight of its aim of establishing good governance. The government says that there is no corruption at the political level. However, day-to-day administrative affairs are not run by top officials sitting in federal and provincial capitals but by those with whom people come into contact regularly in field offices. If they are bad, the government must be bad too. Currently, the people are being fleeced by lower officials at will and there is no one to stop them.
Take, for example, the case of the Muzaffargarh Nadra Swift Registration Centre, which is manned by an insensitive staff. The government has made the national identity card compulsory for all citizens. But with illiteracy still at 70 per cent it should have been the government’s duty to send officials from door to door (as was in the case of polio vaccination) making available ID cards to each and every person. All kinds of hurdles are created when one applies for an NID card and at least half the cases are rejected. So many documents are asked for that it makes one’s head turn. Some of the documents demanded are property papers, domicile certificate, medical certificate, matric/inter certificate, old ID card, B-form, parent’s/husband’s IDs, birth, marriage, divorce, death certificates, a relative’s computerised ID card, children’s ID cards and so on. The result in that the applicant is bound to fail on one or more counts and is forced to pay privately to get it over with.
The Muzaffargarh Nadra office, situated in one of the most illiterate and backward parts of the country, is notorious for this. Its officials have turned people’s adversity into private opportunity. One of the first things the government must do is either to abolish the condition of national ID card in all official transactions or make its acquisition easier. The previous system of filling in the form by the applicant himself or by a friend and getting it attested by a gazetted officer (serving or retired) should be reinstated. Also, the Muzaffargarh Swift Centre must be cleansed of unsympathetic elements.
RAFAY ALI KHAN
Muzaffargarh
REFERENCE the NBP letter (April 25), the bank has admitted deducting premium for insurance without securing the specific consent of account holders. Also, the NBP acting as insurance company is not within the purview of banking functions.
These actions of the NBP call for action from the regulatory authority, the State Bank of Pakistan.
DR M.M. YOUNAS
Islamabad
THIS refers to Syed A. Mateen/Sultan Ahmed (April 20) on bureaucratic reform. Any attempt to reform one ministry at a time will not work. It is true that acts/ordinances transformed into rules are twisted the way the bureaucrat wishes and under the law quite lawfully.
No one has bothered to move further downwards to convert the rules/by-laws into standard operating procedures (SOPs) which go into the details. Further, the SOPs have to be maintained to keep them current — something almost never done, but absolutely necessary to ensure discretion is reduced (not eliminated) to the minimum.
Introducing new SOPs is no joke, it involves a tremendous amount of donkey work. It is not a glamour job unlike one-off projects. Effective SOPs will come when it is possible to hold a bureaucrat accountable for not doing what he should. This will happen when we adopt the methodology that Napoleon adopted, influenced by Islam, when he was stranded in Egypt for about 13 months after Lord Nelson sank his fleet in Abukir Bay. Accountability of the executive, given our temperament, must reside within the executive as it did 1,400 years ago. Formalisation of the complaint courts (nazar fil mazalim) came when the fifth Omayyad Caliph Abdul Malik bin Marwan institutionalised it. This very effectively separates the executive from the judiciary as the complaint (administrative) courts have separate and independent jurisdiction, nowadays with their own appellate arrangements.
Any reform must look at something ‘new’ and be aware the introduction of the new has to be made with a short-term strategy (project or change phase) to be followed by the long-term approach (routine phase) as the requirements of both are very different.
MASOOD HASAN
Lahore
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