RECENT newspaper reports refer to the claims of the chairperson of the National Commission on Government Reform (NCGR) that his recommendations with respect to educational reforms in the country have been approved for implementation by the president.

Obviously, the NCGR has spoken out of turn — when the ministry of education is in the process of finalising a comprehensive national education policy which could include NCGR recommendations.

Moreover, the claims of the NCGR are misleading and of dubious value e.g. poor pupils to get private tuition at state expense. That the whole current education policy exercise is an undiluted effort at perpetuating and sustaining education of the elite, for the elite and by the elite is another matter. The masses be damned. But that is not the point today.

The point is that planned public good, through public policy, under autocratic governments in this country — civil or military — is the imposition of the whim, wish or will of the rulers on hapless citizens without regard to their desires, ambitions, hopes and fears. The demand of the citizen is either not allowed to be voiced, or not ascertained or disdainfully discarded as irrelevant.

We have a long history of reforms in this country imposed by the ruler of the day, be it the single national language of 1948, the basic democracy system, the presidential form of government, the dogmatisation of society in the 1980s, devolution or the police reforms of President Musharraf.

Why are reforms inflicted so arbitrarily on the people? While the rulers are generally insensitive to the lot of the masses, they need to present a façade of care and concern. This is generally done with convoluted articulations of benign intentions — full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

How does this come about? Sycophantic submissions are music to the ears of dictators. Therefore, myopic management gurus, Lilliputian philosophers and intellectual pygmies surround such rulers to pander to their egos of autonomous wisdom. These advisors have the uncanny ability to convince the rulers of their indispensability — the ruler is the state. This deft obsequiousness of the advisors — chairmen of commissions, committees, and bureaus — endears them to the ruler.

These advisors rarely have any intellectual integrity. Therefore, with the sole purpose of perpetuation of personal profit and privilege, these advisors churn out reform plans to build an image of a great reformer for the ruler. They are not concerned whether or not the reform is in the lasting interest of the majority.

These reform agents generally do not have the demonstrated capacity relevant to visualising and concretising such sectoral reform plans. Yes, they are familiar with the fashionable jargon needed for the assignment and have a number of models in their bags — whichever may capture the fancy of the ruler: the American model for the country’s constitution; the Anglo-Saxon model for the local government, the Turkish model for the civil-military partnership in political authority, etc.

The reform engineers have no concern with the need of the people. It is only the wish of the rulers that has their total attention and commitment. They are not worried about the consequences and sustainability of reform, or its social and political fallout.

Reforms imposed by autocrats have no foundations in the social psyche of the people or the politico-cultural history of this country. A particular reform is no more than a buzzword for the ruler, a catchy slogan. There is no effort to analyse the sustainability of the reform in a particular social milieu.

These reforms have almost always been introduced through executive injunctions — whether in the garb of orders or ordinances. Their articulation has not been shaped by parliamentary debates leading to legislation. At best these have been given ex post facto parliamentary sanction as a trade-off for a return to a façade of democratic governance after blatant extra-constitutional dispensations.

Let us refer to reforms in recent years, for example .The devolution plan — through local government and police reforms — was prepared and finalised between 2000 and 2002. The then chairman of the National Reconstruction Bureau had neither any academic training in local government nor any experience as a practitioner. That rented intellectual capacity of dubious distinction was available to him does not strengthen his personal credentials. He had a charm which was dear to the president and he could bulldoze his way through all other tiers of government. In hindsight, he had no clue of change management.

The NRB was unmindful of the history of local government in this subcontinent, and was bent on bringing in a revolutionary change without caring to consider that revolutionary changes are not sustainable; only incremental, evolutionary change is.

The NRB did not want to consider well-tested models like the district boards of British times, with an elected chairman. They had worked well; their role could have been further strengthened and institutionalised.

If the purpose was empowerment of the people and devolution of authority to the local levels, the local governments could have been made autonomously responsible for development work and the provision of services in the social sector. This could have been the first phase of transition. Law and order and revenue records need not have been placed in the hands of local governments in this phase. But the concept of evolution was foreign to the NRB.

The police reforms were also heralded as some golden revolution. The purpose seems have been to make the police force institutionally unaccountable by removing a neutral oversight mechanism. This opened the doors to manipulation of the police force for political purposes. It created a nexus of corruption between the police force and the elected nazims, to the detriment of the rights of the common man and the maintenance of law and order generally.

The nazim is mandated to oversee police functionaries. But where were the nazims when the Sialkot jail incident occurred soon after the devolution plan was in place? And did anyone hear or see the elected local governments preventing or controlling the situation in the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination that resulted in the worst breakdown of law and order in the country’s history?

The economy suffered losses of billions of dollars, but we are happy that we have destroyed the institution of the deputy commissioner. Law and order be damned, at least we have created another tier of political authority that looks up directly to the centre and can dilute provincial political authority and clout. One day the nazims could become an electoral college.

The caretaker cabinet is presiding (perhaps?) over the government at a very crucial and critical juncture in our history, under traumatic socio-political conditions. Why should this government take fundamental decisions of public policy, rather than wait for parliament and civil society to ponder and confer and then finalise a policy by an act of parliament? What is the hurry? If some policies could not be decided in the last few years, why can’t we wait for just a few more months? Just because our intellectual commitments have degenerated into obstinacy?

Please, sirs, spare us the wisdom of these self-anointed intellectuals, who have little experience of government in Pakistan, and perhaps even less interest in the people of Pakistan. Shall we keep on inflicting foreign and multilateral agendas on unsuspecting Pakistanis?

THE Pakistan government faces the challenge of at least partially overcoming the looming economic crisis and also put the country back on track financially. It is a tough challenge but the government has to take timely measures to control the situation.

There are two options to meet this challenge. The first option involves reducing the very large and varied subsidies which cost the government in the first half of this financial year Rs55 billion on oil, Rs50 billon on fertilizers, Rs23 billion on sugar and Rs12 billion on wheat. The second option means reducing the public sector development programme of Rs520 billion to reasonable levels after it had been raised by 25 per cent over the last year’s allocation.

President Pervez Musharraf presided over a special meeting to consider the issue and derive measures to provide relief to the government as well as to the people who have been living in total fear of a heavy rise in POL rates. But it could not reach any definite decision and the president gave one week to the mandarins of the official financial sector to come up with viable measures which do not hurt the people much and also help the government.

The meeting will be resumed after confirmed decisions were taken. The problem would not have become so complex if oil had not touched dollar hundred a barrel and then marginally receded. There is some hope that President Bush’s visit to the Middle East may lead the Opec countries to pump more oil.

Apart from these problems, the government also faces an 8.2 billion dollar deficit in external trade in the first half of the financial year which has pushed the current account deficit to over four per cent of the GDP. The budget revenue is also declining and the revenue target has been scaled down to one trillion rupees from over one trillion, so as to be realistic.

Another problem the country faces is the excess reliance on the textile exports which constitute two-third of the entire exports. So the World Trade Organization has asked Pakistan to diversify exports and make it broad-based. The wheat problem of Pakistan is a serious one and only the security personnel can ensure fair distribution of wheat flour to the people. This is in addition to what the army and para-military forces are doing: fight militants in the tribal areas, deal with terrorism and maintain law and order.

The army and the rangers are being utilised to perform a myriad of tasks such as giving protection to Muharram gatherings and procession and post-earthquake rehabilitation. Such over-exposure is not good for the army. But when other agencies fail, they have to be excessively used. The police is guarding the VIPs and the political leaders.

The sugar industry is facing a crisis and needs substantial relief. Cotton production in 2007-08 has come down to 11.6 million bales against the target of 14-15 million bales. The sugar techonologists say the cane crop has vastly improved and may result in surplus of one million tones of sugar.

The fall in revenues is attributed to increased evasion of taxes including under-declarations under the universal self-assessment scheme. A recent discovery was that tax-paying companies had paid Rs11 billion less. But in an election year the government may not want to be tough with defaulters.

The question being asked is what the government can do if it cannot properly provide the wheat grown in the country to the people and it has to eventually use the army after having tried all its other tools. This is a very relevant question.

Anyhow, the sensitive price index shows a rise of 18.6 per cent which partly reflects the rise in food prices in recent months. It was one thing to come up with a PSDP of Rs520 billion and another to provide necessary funds which the government has not been able to do. So the government has no option but to reduce the development budget, although it does not provide funds for the large dams. If the development programme is slashed, employment will also be reduced which Pakistan cannot afford at this juncture.

The government has decided that Wapda should supply power to the flour mills 19 hours a day. The new energy conservation policy also calls for closure of shops at 7:30 pm but the demand has been rejected by the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and the shopkeepers defiantly keep their shops open in the night.

The government has also decided to revive the energy conservation council. Why was the council abandoned in the first place and why were the energy conservation measures approved by the cabinet in October 2006 not enforced? Why are the cabinet decisions in critical areas not implemented when there is a critical need to do so?

The energy issue was taken lightly by the government and the country had to suffer for that. Somebody should be made to pay the price for such gross neglect and total cussedness, in spite of the need for urgent. Now that the energy conservation council has been revived it should be given real teeth and made to function effectively.

THE case of the caretaker outfit is getting curiouser and curiouser. It has become impossible to fit it within the definition of a caretaker regime. At times, it cannot be distinguished from the set-up it is supposed to have supplanted. At other times, it assumes the role of a normal, full-tenure government, and exercises powers generally not allowed even to democratically constituted authorities.

The impression that the caretaker regime is a continuation of the government it succeeded has its origin in President Musharraf’s apparent decision to run the government under his direct command. All major acts of government are traced to him. It is under his chairmanship that the cabinet decides to pass on the burden of the POL subsidy to consumers. It is he who decides a TV channel’s fate, the probe into Benazir Bhutto’s murder, and the holding of elections. While justifying the judiciary’s purge of November last, he recently declared that if the need arose he would repeat his performance.

This and his frequently reiterated position that the next government will not be allowed to change his policies can only mean that whatever the result of the forthcoming election, he will be the locus of state authority. True, President Musharraf has been saying that he will be able to work with anyone who becomes the head of government after the polls, but such statements do not mean that he is a neutral referee and does not have favourites in the arena.

On the one hand, the president’s protestation may only mean that the next prime minister will as usual have to lean on him and thus his identity does not matter. And, on the other hand, the public is familiar with his favourites. He is on record as having told PML-Q legislators that the next prime minister would be from their party. Working under such an active head of state, the caretaker regime can hardly claim to be as independent and neutral as a transitory set-up is expected to be for guaranteeing fair elections.

No elaborate argument is needed to show that a caretaker regime has a limited role. Since it constitutes a political aberration it is suggested only for unstable and immature democracies, and that too for a limited period. Recently, President Musharraf appeared to be wondering at the introduction of the idea of caretakers in Pakistan when he asked his audience: “Where in the world do you have caretaker regimes for holding elections?” He was not the first person to question the innovation, and the way the caretakers have lost the goodwill of a once large constituency is worth recounting.

The argument in favour of holding general elections under caretaker regimes grew out of the peculiar national tradition of sacking the National Assembly before the expiry of its term. Since the objective of this action was nearly always to get rid of an ‘undesirable’ prime minister, the holding of a general election under him would have been a self-defeating measure. General Zia settled the matter by revising Article 48 of the Constitution and providing for a caretaker government every time the National Assembly was dissolved by the president. Hence, caretaker regimes had to be installed in 1988, 1990, 1993 and 1996. This was projected as a basic pre-requisite to fair elections.

For reasons that are quite well-known, caretakers were never found capable of guaranteeing clean polls, even if all of them were not uniformly keen instruments of rigging. Memories of rigging in all elections held since 1951, when the system of adult franchise was introduced, and frustrations caused by the conduct of partisan caretakers led to increased emphasis on the caretakers’ being, first and last, neutral overseers in a transitory regime.

The demand for neutral overseers of the electoral process received a boost when Bangladesh changed its constitution to provide for an interim set-up for each election. Quite a few in Pakistan were quick to hail the Bangladeshis for showing them a way to solve a constitutional riddle. Some kind of consensus emerged to the effect that a general election should be under a caretaker set-up even when a National Assembly passed away on the completion of its term.

Whether President Musharraf was influenced by this debate or whether he had some ideas of his own, he amended Article 224 of the Constitution in the Legal Framework Order of 2002 (later on sanctified by the Seventeenth Amendment) to the effect that when assemblies were dissolved on completion of their term caretaker cabinets had to be appointed.

The record of Pakistani caretakers chosen by the president in his discretion has not been edifying. The Bangladeshi design to confine the chief caretaker’s selection to the judiciary has not worked either. As a result, caretakers no longer inspire confidence as agents of fair elections. For one thing, governments in both Pakistan and Bangladesh have found ways of ensuring that the caretakers are independent and neutral only in their favour. For another, caretakers cannot have the means to hold fair elections if the permanent state apparatus resolutely wishes otherwise.

However, a matter of greater concern than the caretakers’ being a continuation of the outgoing cabinet is their adventures into areas that are, or at any rate should be, outside their mandate and jurisdiction. The mandate of a caretaker cabinet is not defined in the Pakistan Constitution. But it is generally believed that its task should be limited to overseeing an orderly election and maintaining the administration’s routine working.

The caretakers are not qualified to make laws or long-term policies as that is the privilege of the duly accredited representatives of the people who are also answerable, however notionally, to a parliament. The caretakers have neither a mandate from the electorate nor are they accountable to it.

The reason for stating this is the evidence that the present caretaker cabinet is dabbling in legislation it has no business to undertake. Three cases prove the point.

The caretaker regime is responsible for the move to establish a high court in Islamabad, a most controversial project. The legal fraternity and the judiciary have for years been resisting the move that has been advanced under various labels.

There must have been something amiss in the plan to persuade even a post-PCO Lahore High Court to issue an injunction. The doubts about the project can only be resolved in parliament.

The second case is the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Ordinance, which has been denounced as a cruel attack on the freedom of information.

The third case relates to the NWFP caretaker regime’s draft regulation to extend the system of qazi courts, tried unsuccessfully in the Malakand Agency, to a large part of the province, formerly described as Provincially-Administered Tribal Areas (Pata). The territory includes Swat, Malakand, Dir and Chitral.

In the name of enforcing Sharia, a large part of the country is being surrendered to the Taliban and this is bound to whet the latter’s appetite for more of such servings. The measure will severely undermine Pakistan’s polity and its future.

The caretakers must desist from transgressing what must be a restricted mandate. They do not appear to be caretakers any more, and the impression needs to be removed.