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| February 24, 2007 | Saturday | Safar 6, 1428 |
Tackling industrial pollution
Excessive fare increase
The presidential election: an appraisal
Tripped up by the system
MUCH has been said and more is likely to be said about the implications and connotations of the constitutional provisions germane to the forthcoming presidential election. The purpose here is to highlight cognate aspects here.
THE Inflation Monitor of the State Bank of Pakistan released on Thursday indicates that while the overall inflation rate is sliding, the double-digit inflation of most food items persists despite some temporary and half-hearted measures taken by the government to stabilise prices. The contribution of food inflation in the overall Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose to 53.8 per cent in January as against 38.5 per cent a year ago. The prices of essential items of daily consumption are rising faster. The 12-month CPI average was 7.7 per cent as against the food price inflation of 8.5 per cent. Economists say that inflation is a most unfair tax on the poor and is leading to the concentration of national wealth in a few hands. The poor are the worst hit because the country does not have a wide social safety net which also suffers from a poor delivery system. It has not brought about any improvement over the years in real benefits for the poor. Equitable income distribution is not on the government’s agenda. Food inflation is outside the ambit of the State Bank’s monetary policy. Government borrowings for meeting the budget deficit are inflationary. Increased savings that could lower consumer spending and finance productive investment are being discouraged by a negative return on bank deposits. So, the inflationary trend remains unchecked.
The government has resorted to brief interventions in the case of market abuse and failures, including hoarding and speculation, to smoothen supplies to stabilise prices. But that has not proved enough in an economy which is a halfway house between a market and essentially a mediaeval agrarian system. The prices of essential items cannot, therefore, be left at the mercy of the markets: official policies must radically shift to ensure that the prices of food and other basic necessities of life remain stable by linking them to the cost of production. The immediate task of the government should be to formulate a Produce Price Index which must be issued periodically like the Consumer Price Index. The prices of food items are linked to the much neglected agricultural sector which suffers from low productivity and lack of investment in technological innovations and improvements. It is a major sector ill-served by the banking system and is starved of much needed credit. The SBP governor has expressed her concern over the slow growth in agricultural credit as only 45 per cent of the targeted Rs160 billion has been disbursed in the first half of the current fiscal year. Also, agricultural credit is concentrated in a small segment of the affluent farmers and not widely dispersed region-wise and province-wise.
Official policies have also been responsible for higher prices. The government heavily taxes items of mass consumption like edible oil, sugar, etc and dilutes direct taxes with such levies as withholding tax that is invariably passed on to the consumers. Investments are financed by foreign capital inflows rather than by raising the rate of domestic savings that could positively impact on inflation. It is not the economic growth but the model economic growth that is fuelling inflation in which increased production does not stabilise prices nor are its benefits directly passed on to the consumers. Price stability is not being accorded the priority it deserves for improving the quality of life of the common man. The government needs to tackle the critical issue of social justice in an emerging market.
A LAUDABLE precedent was set on Wednesday when the Supreme Court ordered the immediate closure of two steel mills on account of their failure to comply with environmental standards. The apex court deemed that the units in question, located in Islamabad’s industrial area, were polluting the environment and posing a serious threat to the lives of nearby residents. Taking suo motu notice of pollution in the federal capital, the court directed the national Environmental Protection Agency to ascertain whether factories in the industrial area were adhering to the standards set by the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997. The two steel mills shut down by the Supreme Court were found to be among the worst offenders, and they will remain closed until they abide by the law. This is a welcome first step in a country with near-calamitous levels of pollution and where acts of omission and commission have made a mockery of environmental laws.
This ruling should come as a wake-up call for provincial EPAs that have so far turned a blind eye to major polluters. These include tanneries, paper and board factories, steel and textile mills, refineries, power stations and pharmaceutical companies. Across the country, industrial effluent is routinely discharged into rivers, streams and the sea, contaminating the waterways as well as the soil and freshwater aquifers. In city suburbs, fruit and vegetables are grown on farms fed by the wastewater released by nearby manufacturing units. Factories continue to belch smoke and toxins into the air, endangering the lives of citizens who are becoming increasingly prone to respiratory problems, lung cancer and heart disease. In Karachi, one boy died and several suffered amputation in March 2006 after coming into contact with highly corrosive chemicals dumped by a factory in an empty plot in the Site area. In November last year, seven children received serious burn injuries from inflammable chemicals illegally offloaded in Orangi. In both cases, the Sindh EPA came to life after the event. Instead of damage control, the need of the hour is to tackle root causes. A detailed survey of industries must be conducted throughout the country and polluters taken to task.
IT IS disappointing to note that PIA has increased its Peshawar to Chitral fare by as much as 80 per cent. This must be especially staggering for many of the people in Chitral who cannot afford to travel at such a high fare and have no other means of transport. Many people used to travel by road through the Afghan province of Kunar but that is no longer possible for security reasons. It is difficult to understand why PIA made this decision when it knew that the Lowari tunnel — one that connects to Chitral through the Lowari Pass — is yet to be completed. Air travel is particularly difficult with many flights often cancelled because of bad weather; last year 197 flights were cancelled for this reason alone. Chitral is one destination where air fare was perhaps subsidised as it is for passengers travelling on certain other tertiary routes. It is understood that these routes did not bring in much money, so it would make sense had PIA nominally increased its fare to meet the demands of high fuel and other costs. However, an 80 per cent increase is hard to understand. Especially since PIA is not going to recover any of its losses through this increase. This decision must be reviewed keeping the Chitrali people’s plight in mind.
Undoubtedly, PIA has to address several issues to get itself out of the financial mess it is in. A Public Accounts Committee report last year said that PIA had lost nine billion rupees in the first nine months of 2006. This is largely because of high fuel costs and the organisation being overstaffed. The management said last month that it would consider downsizing and one hopes it does so in the right places and not in departments like maintenance where more funds are, in fact, needed.
The official version on the subject is simple. They say that, in accordance with Article 41(7) of the Constitution, the presidential term, upon relinquishment of the office of the chief executive by the present incumbent, began on November 16, 2002, and would end on November 15, 2007. Article 41(7), as substituted by the Legal Framework Order, 2002 (LFO), with its proviso inserted by the Constitution (Seventeenth Amendment) act, is as reproduced below:
“(7) The Chief Executive of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
(a) shall relinquish the office of Chief Executive on such day as he may determine in accordance with the judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan of 12th May, 2000; and
(b) having received the democratic mandate to serve the nation as President of Pakistan for a period of five years shall, on relinquishing the office of the Chief Executive, notwithstanding anything contained in this Article or Article 43 or any other provision of the Constitution or any other law for the time being in force, assume the office of President of Pakistan forthwith and shall hold office for a term of five years under the Constitution, and Article 44 and other provisions of the Constitution shall apply accordingly:
Provided that Paragraph (d) of clause (1) of Article 63 shall become operative on and from the 31st day of December, 2003.”
These being the parameters of the current presidential term, the proponents of the official point of view rely on Article 41(4) of the Constitution to suggest that the ensuing presidential election having been postulated by the Constitution to be held not earlier than 60 days but not later than 30 days before the expiration of the term of the president in office, must take place within the narrow corridor of September 15, 2007, and October 15, 2007. Article 41(4) of the Constitution (continuing unchanged since the inception of the Constitution in 1973) is this:
“(4)Election to the office of President shall be held not earlier than sixty days and not later than thirty days before the expiration of the term of the President in office:
Provided that, if the election cannot be held within the period aforesaid because the National Assembly is dissolved, it shall be held within thirty days of the general election to the Assembly.”
However, according to one point of view, the official version tends to overlook the impact of clauses (8) & (9) in Article 41 of the Constitution, as inserted through the Seventeenth Amendment. These clauses inter alia envisage that, not later than 30 days from the commencement of the Constitution (17th Amendment) Act, 2003, any member or members of the federal or provincial legislatures may move a resolution for vote of confidence “for further affirmation of the President in office by a majority of the members present and voting” of the electoral college consisting of the said legislatures and such “vote of confidence having been passed, the President, notwithstanding anything contained in the Constitution or judgement of any Court, shall be deemed to be elected to hold office for a term of five years under the Constitution, and the same shall not be called in question in any Court or forum on any grounds whatsoever.”
Pursuant to Article 41(8) and (9) which, being part and parcel of the Seventeenth Amendment, took effect from December 31, 2003, the vote of confidence, spoken of in such clauses (8) and (9), did actually materialise, within the 30 days’ time from December 31, 2003 (on January 1, 2004)
In this view of the matter, the current presidential term may be deemed to have commenced not on November 16, 2002, but upon the emergence of the vote of confidence, as anticipated in the above clauses (8) and (9), introduced by the Seventeenth Amendment. The term, thus, may end not on November 15, 2007, but around December 31, 2008, making it implausible for the sitting electoral college to go for another vote before the efflux of its own term, also incidentally expiring on November 15, 2007.
This point of view would, at the minimum, stand whittled down by the fact that per Article 4 of the Referendum Order, 2002, “the democratic mandate to General Pervez Musharraf” for serving as president for five years “shall be computed from the first meeting of” the parliament to be inducted through the general elections proposed for October 2002.
What is more, the general, in contemplation of Article 41(7), above reproduced, relinquished the office of chief executive on November 16, 2002, corresponding with the convening of the National Assembly (not with the “first meeting of” parliament routinely unamenable to a spontaneous composite convening date for its two Houses) thereby assuming “the office of President of Pakistan forthwith”.
Significantly, clauses (8) & (9) of Article 41 operate as “further affirmation” and do not envisage terminus a quo of their own. At any event, clause 41(8) opens with the words, “without prejudice to the provisions of clause (7)” of the same article, thereby subordinating it to such clause (7).
There is, however, another facet of the Seventeenth Amendment which may be noted. The legislative history behind the introduction of the proviso to Article 41(7) indicates that the general had undertaken to eschew the uniform by December 31, 2003, whereafter Article 63(l)(d) per the said proviso was to “become operative” 63(l) (d) envisages that an array of public representatives, inclusive of the president, shall not hold “an office of profit in the service of Pakistan other than an office declared by law not to disqualify its holder.”
However, before December 31, 2003, the President to Hold Another Office Act, (VII of 2004), was got passed by the parliament to preclude the sitting COAS’ disqualification under Article 63(l) (d). It is doubtful whether such legislation could be promulgated within the ambit of Articles 63 (1) (d) & 260 of the Constitution. In any case, it is settled law that by a sub-constitutional measure (Act VII of 2004) a constitutional mandate [proviso to Article 41(7)] could not be bypassed. Nonetheless, in the case of Pakistan Lawyers' Forum vs Federation of Pakistan (Supreme Court appeal d.o. April 13, 2005), where the said questions do not seem to have been addressed, the Another Office Act was validated.
Clause (2) of Article 44 also throws up a possible grey area. It precludes a person from holding the presidential office “for more than two consecutive terms”. Before entering upon office, the president is to make before the chief justice “oath in the form set out in the Third Schedule.” Thus a presidential term begins with the referred oath-taking.
Contextual to the current dispensation, General Musharraf took successive oaths on June 20, 2001, upon wresting the presidency from President Tarar and, again, on November 16, 2002, following relinquishment of office as CEO, coinciding with the meeting of the National Assembly after the general elections.
Can he be administered a third successive oath, each oath an apparent harbinger of a new term, and yet remain within the four corners of Article 44 (2)? Apologists will argue that a presidential term is to be of “five years”. But can't a shorter term be visualised? The Constitution itself contemplates exigencies such as resignation, impeachment and even death. Interesting, isn't it? (To be concluded)
The writer is a former Supreme Court judge.
THE Romano Prodi government is, in the immediate sense, a victim of the Iraq war. The Italian prime minister's nine-party coalition government, which came to power in May last year, fell on Wednesday night after losing a Senate vote.
Although the issues that led to the prime minister's resignation concerned troops in Afghanistan and the expansion of the US base at Vicenza, neither would have had the same divisive impact on his coalition were it not for the dismay felt in Italy, as in other European countries, over American policy in the Middle East. It is ironic that Mr Prodi, who campaigned against the war, called it "a grave error" in his inaugural speech and withdrew the Italian contingent from Iraq, should have been brought down because of it.
But Mr Prodi made a clear distinction between Iraq and Afghanistan, and also believed that opposing the Vicenza expansion was inconsistent with Nato membership.
The parties in the Berlusconi camp, with their cries of "Go home, comrades", have shown their opportunism by deriving so much satisfaction from the defeat of policies which they themselves support.
The more fundamental cause of the crisis, however, is the sabotage of the Italian political system of which Silvio Berlusconi was guilty when he was in office. His readiness to use his wealth and his control of much of the Italian media to buttress his political position, and to use his power to expand his business empire, degraded Italian politics.
— The Guardian, London