LBOD: victim of flawed planning

The World Bank has offered a new action plan to Pakistan to mitigate the adverse fallout of the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) project on wetland fisheries habitats, resulting in great suffering for the people of Badin and Thatta districts in Sindh. Because of bad planning, designing, monitoring and execution, the project has proved to be an engineering, environmental, human and socio-economic disaster. As the World Bank president says, everyone could have done a better job in mitigating risks and impact of natural disasters within and outside of the project areas. Everyone here includes the officials of the World Bank, the governments of Pakistan and Sindh and Wapda. The tragic part of the whole story is that the concerns of local experts and the community were ignored, with the result that ultimately, it was they who were proved right. It was only after the breakdown of the project and its aftermath that grassroot representatives persuaded the World Bank to appoint an independent panel to look into the episode.

The panel has identified serious flaws in the project whose initial cost escalated from Rs8.5 billion to over Rs31 billion. The unfinished project was then merged with National Drainage Project (NDP). Officials responsible for the project were less systemic, less informed and more ad hoc, says the panel.Now the World Bank wants to make amends. It says that improving the livelihood of thousands of poor families who have suffered adverse impact at the tail end of the Indus River system is at the core of a new water management action plan. But will the poor families, who have suffered, be compensated for the loss of their livelihood and their near and dear ones. The flood response plan is planned to be worked out with local officials to ensure better management of this risk, including early warning and evacuation plans and flood refuge structures. The programme would focus on those people living close to the LBOD or for whom the panel found the LBOD was a contributing factor to flood damage. LBOD is not an isolated case where the World Bank and the country receiving its assistance handle projects, completely oblivious of their implications, whether it be the framing of feasibility reports or monitoring and execution of programmes. One serious consequence is the problem of cost over-runs that make projects unduly costly and create bad debts.

Pakistan has been heavily dependent on external assistance to finance its economic development and face balance of payments difficulties, especially when the multilateral lending agencies like the IMF and the World Bank provide the credit. Currently, too, these agencies are financing public sector development programme while government reforms are still to be implemented, with improvement in governance linked to much delayed fiscal probity. With the delivery system being weak, the outcome is not known. The World Bank has done the right thing by accepting the massive failure on its part in case of the LBOD project. But what is no less important is that stakeholders in any programme or project must have an effective say, particularly those who are to be its beneficiaries. Though belatedly, the World Bank has set an example for Pakistan to follow. Similarly, the multinational agencies like the IMF and the World Bank often blame the aid recipients for failures and do not normally share the blame for their own lapses as has been brought out by the panel report in the LBOD case. It is time for two-way accountability.

PIA in trouble

ONCE again PIA is said to be financially in dire straits. The airlines’ operations in terms of poor maintenance of its fleet cited by the European Union aviation experts, for example, have fared no better in recent months. Consequently, the EU has barred PIA from operating a good number of its Jumbo jet flights on European routes. The Boeing 777s, the state-of-the-art, most modern aircraft recently acquired by the airlines, too, have figured in complaints of poor maintenance and upkeep on the part of the PIA engineering. The national flag carrier’s half-yearly audit report for the year ended June 30, 2006, is a damning document, noting that the airlines’ liabilities have surpassed its assets’ total value by a whopping Rs22 billion by September this year. This includes the net operational loss of over Rs6.14 billion, as a result, we are told, of higher fuel prices in the international market during the period under review. The claim may well be true but only partially, because PIA has been consistently raising its fares on various routes, imposing a fuel surcharge, and passing on the burden of rising cost of fuel to passengers and cargo agents. That said, the question as to why the airlines’ fleet remains unclean and poorly maintained still eludes an answer. Under the circumstances, it is disturbing to note the reported dismissal by a finance ministry spokesman of the state of affairs obtaining in the airlines as ‘normal’. If this is the mindset prevailing in the officialdom, then God alone can save the national flag carrier from buckling under what seems an imminent financial crunch.

There was a time - now long past since the 1960s - when PIA was the country’s leading image setter in the wider world. Then the rot of political appointments began to set in. Aviation industry professionals were given golden handshakes and replaced by those who had little expertise or the vision needed for running the airlines; the trend has continued since then. It will take more than flashy new liveries and colourful plane tails to make the national flag carrier a smooth sailor once again.

Closure of orphanage

FOLLOWING the recent closure of the Ashiana orphanage in Attock district, the ministry of social welfare and special education has a lot of explaining to do. The orphanage housed widowed women and children who had lost their parents in last year’s devastating earthquake. Since there was a general understanding that the orphanage would continue until its inmates were in a position to fend for themselves, it remains a mystery why the ministry was in such a hurry to seal the premises and hand over the children to AJK and NWFP government representatives. The ministry’s statement that it was closed down because it was supposed to be a temporary arrangement is illogical. Reports that a dispute over funding had arisen between the ministry and the NGO that ran the orphanage sound more credible. The truth must be ascertained and the closure of the orphanage justified on cogent grounds.

However, whatever the reasons for its closure, the fact remains that the women and children, who were only beginning to recover from the trauma of losing their homes and loved ones, have had their lives cruelly disrupted again. They face a troubled existence and an uncertain future that would not have been the case had the government not interfered in the running of the orphanage and not held back funds, as alleged by the NGO. What is equally distressing are charges levelled against the ministry by the NGO — and corroborated by the affected children and their families — that ministry officials retained cash and cheques given to the children by Saudi King Abdullah. The ministry has denied the charge of embezzlement but the truth must be verified. The government should immediately hold an inquiry into the matter, and anyone found guilty of misappropriation must be dealt with sternly.

The electronic media explosion

IN recent years, Pakistan has moved into the age of multiple-channel television broadcasting. The cable TV has brought the world close to the domestic viewers, earnestly making and shaping their opinions in the process.

Is the exposure to western media expected to globalise the thought and behaviour patterns of the public? Can the Indian TV channels bring down the walls of ignorance and hostility between the two countries? Will the private channels finally render PTV ineffective and unpopular in terms of coverage of news and views?

Let’s look at the news and entertainment broadcasting by the western TV channels. The former provide an instant look into the world events big or small, near or distant. Pakistani viewers of CNN, BBC, Sky News, Bloomberg and other news channels from abroad experience the process of compression of time and space, without being conscious about it. The producers and consumers of the media operate in different social and political contexts at a distance of thousands of miles from each other. When messages about the Washington-led war on terrorism reach Pakistan across thee continents, its meaning is transformed at the receiving end according to the consumers’ prior commitments to the Muslim world.

On the other hand, a lot of the international discourse sticks in terms of argument and idiom of communication. The TV may cover Iraq, Iran, North Korea or Afghanistan, WMD, A Q Khan, London bombings, Pope’s remarks about Islam or Islamabad’s agreement with tribal elders in South Waziristan. But the terms of reference are comprehensively shaped by the western media. Apart from that, the latter seems to have lent a spirit of professionalism to the electronic media in Pakistan in terms of quality of presentation, editing of the available visual material and the format of talk shows.

The entertainment aspect of the western media, as viewed in Pakistan, has created interesting, sometimes unwelcome, results in what is still the widely operative context of a lounge TV. For example, there are regional variations of the level of accommodation of the cable TV. The NWFP under the MMA government banned it while most other areas of Pakistan remain open to the broadcasting of western TV channels. Islamic parties and groups generally oppose the ‘liberal’ content of programmes on the mini screen as a threat to morals and manners of society.

Secondly, one can point to the gender-based variation in TV viewing of liberal programmes. The male viewing is typically more expansive than female viewing because the former is allowed wider latitude. Thirdly, there is a generational pattern of TV viewing, whereby the youth is ahead of the older people in watching western films, concerts and fashion shows. Both male and young viewing of the ‘liberal’ stuff point to the ‘side viewing’ insofaras it represents an act of opting out of the lounge TV syndrome.

The expanding electronic media has faced opposition from the ascendant, conservative and Islamically oriented middle and lower middle class sections of the population as represented by political parties, NGOs, as well as mosque and madressahs networks. It seems that the cable TV group has found a way out in the form of providing ample channel time for coverage of Islamic teachings and events. This concession to religious elements is tantamount to recognising their social power base.

It is not unusual for TV viewers to constantly move from one channel to another and thus shift from scenes of veiled women to swimsuits on the beach to the pulpit of the mosque onwards to a fashion parade. Some call it tolerance and co-existence between the old world and the new world. Others call it schizophrenia, rooted in the utter lack of direction in public morality.

Not surprisingly, foreign observers find Pakistan as a land of contradictions. For one thing, this situation is an indicator of the limits of social power as exercised by Islamic forces in the nation at large. The entertainment industry has jealously guarded its interests against criticism from the conservative lobby.

The Indian channels enjoy a sizable share of the foreign broadcasting by the cable network. These channels are popular because of films, serial plays and musical shows. A long-term and indirect result of watching Indian TV channels can be a comprehensive march towards dedemonisation of Indians across the border. It has the potential to become a movement for cultural understanding.

In regional terms, this trend represents a movement towards peace between the two countries in terms of laying out the turf for an exchange of ideas and positions about issues and developments in and around Pakistan and India. This process is running parallel to the emergence of regional networking of the media across South Asia. It is difficult to predict whether programmes of the electronic media from the eastern neighbour of Pakistan represent the building blocs of an emerging civil society in the region. What looks more probable is a higher level of regional exchange of ideas and thoughts about a variety of subjects ranging from NGO operations, cultural shows and intellectual debates.

At home, the private TV channels have set a new trend in the field of news coverage. As opposed to the PTV channels, which continue to broadcast views as news relating to domestic politics, the private channels typically prefer to go by the newsworthiness of events and policies. The former generally project the speeches and statements of President Musharraf or Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz or government representatives in general, their forceful denial of certain views emanating from the public platform and warnings to the opposition, most recently to the Baloch nationalists.

However, one can notice change along with continuity in PTV. Competition with private channels has prompted it to go for professional and technological innovations. In the context of TV plays, one sees a change of attire and idiom of characters corresponding to modernisation of certain sections of the population. There is a visible movement from unilinear to multi-linear themes of plays, reflecting a greater awareness about complex issues of public and private life than before. However, this liberalism is confined to entertainment programmes. It is not expected to be the leading characteristic of PTVs coverage of news and views any time soon.

Even as the TV has made long strides forward in terms of engaging the public, the print media in Pakistan continues to cast its shadow on the way the government and opposition as well as the larger society are engaged in discourse about issues and policies. The English press reproduces editorials, op-ed pieces, and political columns of the western newspapers. The electronic media, in tandem with the print media, often criticise the government for going against the spirit of the constitution, violating democratic traditions and being unaccountable to the public at large for inflation, unemployment, poverty, deterioration of the law and order situation and highhandedness against opposition.

The electronic media, along with its strong influence, has come to stay. It seems to have overtaken the press in terms of impact on the target population inasmuch as it reproduces events and characters on the screen directly and promptly. Pakistan has moved to a fuller awareness about the working of international forces, global currents of war and diplomacy and trans-cultural patterns of interaction between states and non-state actors. Whether the electronic media will finally bring about a change in the direction of democracy by strengthening of the nascent civil society remains an open question.

Chile on trial

VILLA Grimaldi, in a suburb of Santiago, Chile, was where in the mid-1970s enemies of dictator Augusto Pinochet were sent to disappear. Thousands of his political opponents — including Chile’s current president, Michelle Bachelet — were interned and tortured there by the secret police; many were never seen outside its walls again.

On Monday last, the 90-year-old Pinochet was placed under house arrest for allegedly ordering the horrific human rights abuses that took place at Villa Grimaldi. It was his fifth arrest since 1998, but this is the first time he has been indicted on torture charges. Pinochet is in poor health, is believed to suffer from mild dementia and has repeatedly been ruled unfit to stand trial. But a judge has determined that Chile’s ex-ruler is fit to face justice in this case.

Whatever happens in these proceedings, it is clear that Pinochet, at this late stage in his life, is unlikely to be held accountable for his actions. What is more dismaying is the degree to which many in Chile continue to defend the general’s brutal actions when he ran the country from 1973 to 1990.

Indeed, it has taken accusations of financial improprieties to taint Pinochet, once hailed as an austerity-embracing, selfless anti-communist, in the eyes of Chilean conservatives. Reports in recent years that the general had stashed millions of dollars in a secret bank account were more devastating to his legacy, than the illegal disappearance of thousands of dissidents.

Last week, documents allegedly showing that Pinochet had stashed nine tons of gold valued at $160 million in a Hong Kong bank were dismissed as cheap forgeries. But the episode may be another distressing sign of how even Pinochet’s opponents feel as though they need to accuse him of corruption in order to forge a consensus against him.

— Los Angeles Times