| August 03, 2008 | Sunday | Rajab 30, 1429 |
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Hasty decision to control ISI
Constitutional quota in jobs
Thinking of the poor…
Obama and the Muslims
Dismissal of FBR chairman
Justice Sabih’s clarification
5-rupee notes
Readers are requested to restrict their comments to a maximum of 400 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for reasons of clarity and space. Letters, including those by e-mail, should carry the complete postal address of the sender. The views expressed in these columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.—Editor
THAR coal deposits are estimated at $8 trillion and in terms of energy its value is $25 trillion. It is unfortunate we spend $12 billion yearly on oil imports while having coal reserves of 185 billion tons.
Producing electricity from coal is cheaper than from furnace oil. The cost of power generated from Lakhra coal is Rs5.67 per unit while private power producers produce power from furnace oil at Rs9.27 per unit.
At present, more than 90 per cent of coal is being utilised in brick kilns and a very small amount for power generation. In 2001 the Thar Coal Task Force was formed, and was headed by President Musharraf. Rheinbraun of Germany, specialising in brown coals, were engaged by the government. They were given the task of preparing a feasibility to support a power plant of 1000 MW capacity based on Thar coal. What was the outcome of this feasibility is still not known.
Another study on Thar coal was carried out by RWE of Germany in 2003. They highlighted that for six million tons annual production with shovel trucks the estimated realisation cost of Thar coal would be $36.50 per ton and cost of electricity generation would be 6.9 cents /kwh.
Through personal initiative of President Musharraf in 2004, the head of Shenhua Energy group arrived in Pakistan. Within months an MoU was signed between Shenhua and the Sindh government for setting up 900MW coal-based power plant on a build, own and operate basis (BOO). The entire project was to be financed by Shenhua Group.
Immediately after signing the MoU, 150 Chinese workers arrived to carry out a detailed study, but Pakistan customs refused to clear heavy equipment brought by the Chinese for various site studies etc until import duties and taxes were were paid by them.
The Chinese also tried to negotiate tariff of 5.75 cents / kwh, but Nepra insisted on 5.34 cents. Shaukat Aziz did not show statesmanship to amicably solve this tariff issue and advised Chinese to take part in competitive bidding like other bidders, for setting up the Thar coal power project. For more than two years, Shenhua Gorup desperately tried to negotiate a reasonable tariff with the power barons but in vain. The Chinese group packed up and left.
In October 2007, Islamabad, however, re-established contact with Shenhua Group, after three years, to discuss starting of work at Thar coal sites and offered increased price of power tariff. The group, reportedly, has shown willingness to install the power plant at a tariff of up to 6.5 cents per unit.
At present, however, things have changed for the better. The centre has made the Sindh government the only custodian of the Thar coal project. It has also abolished the Sindh Coal Authority and the Thar Mining Company and instead a new Thar Coal Authority (TCA) has been established.
The centre’s role will be only supporting one in this TCA. This authority will work as one-step organisation and will be responsible for the development of clean coal technologies, research and development, etc, on Thar coal and also attracting foreign investment.
The centre has also approved setting up of 1000 MW power plant based on Thar coal.
TCA has now been entrusted with this job. It is hoped it will soon arrange infrastructure such as roads, water, life support system, security, communication network and community services.
The important issue is the provision of abundant water supply and also installing national power grid up to the site of power generation. If this project is to be made a success story, a selfless and result-oriented team is needed.
We have lost much time in engaging ourselves in non-issues. From now onwards we should have a targeted approach on this project and try to make up the time lost. This is time to act and deliver.
MAHMOOD AKBAR
Karachi
WHO is responsible for taking such an important decision as transferring the control of the ISI to the interior ministry when Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani was flying to the US? It was imperative that the Army chief and the cabinet were consulted and also parliament should have discussed the matter.
Even the PPP did not bother to take into confidence the coalition partners. The pertinent question is: what was the aim in taking control of the ISI at this stage when a civilian democratic government is yet to consolidate its position.
The ISI has been under the Army, with majority of its staff in khaki and in active Army job, So, the real boss of the staff is the Army Chief. The prime minister and his cabinet are not controlling its administrative, operational and financial aspects.
The ISI only reports to the prime minister, and what is to be reported is decided by the head of the ISI. At present a number of senior Army officers holding the ranks of lieutenant-general, major-general and brigadier are working in the ISI. They cannot accept civilian ministers and bureaucrats as their boss.
The sensible approach should have been to review the mandate of its internal security wing and political cell, which was created by the founder chairman of the PPP, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in 1970 to combat and control insurgency in Balochistan, as well as to keep a watch on the activities of political opponents. Since then the ISI political cell has been used by all the governments to manipulate election.
The role it played in the formation of the IJI against the PPP and the Mehran Bank scandal are well-known acts of its political meddling. It is general impression that ISI working is independent and it is a state with in a state.
It is fact that the civilian democratic government cannot control the ISI as long as it is run by the military. Although intelligence agencies in many civilised countries like Germany, the UK and the US work under the civilians and are subject to questioning by their parliament for oversight scrutiny, the political cell and its involvement in domestic politics is a gross volition of democratic norms and immoral and it is not good for its image in public.
ENGR. S.T. HUSSAIN
Lahore
THIS refers to the statement by Sardar Ahmed, former adviser of finance to the government of Sindh, that 40 per cent quota in jobs in the province should be observed for urban people (Dawn, July 19). Sardar Ahmed has rightly said that it is for national cohesion, unity, brotherhood and prosperity.
It is, therefore, pertinent that such demands may also be made with the federal government to adopt, execute and comply with in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and remove from the minds of the people belonging to smaller and backward provinces the sense of deprivation, heart-burning and usurpation of their rights
Sardar Ahmed may, therefore, kindly let the nation know the actual data of recruitment/ employment made during the tenure of the regime for which he worked, with effect from 1999 till the power was handed over to the PPP, and tell the people of Sindh, of both urban and rural areas, as to how and when they followed, in letter and in spirit, the provisions of the Constitution in providing jobs to the people of Sindh of both urban and rural areas, according to the quota.
He may also collect such data from the federal government and see as to how compliance of the constitutional provisions has been made there.
The demand of the former adviser in any case is just and has to be implemented not only in future but after collecting facts and figures regarding employment provided during the past years in federal as well in provincial government.
Also, efforts are required to make up for the deficiency by giving rights of employment to all the regions and areas according to the constitutional requirements. This way we can reduce the problem of unemployment in the less developed and resourceless areas. Sardar Ahmed’s contribution in this regard will be highly appreciated, particularly in the small provinces, as it will lead to employment of the unemployed educated people of backward areas.
DR ALI AKBAR M. DHAKAN
Chairman, Sindh Development Foundation
Karachi
IT seems to me that everyone is playing his own card. I want to throw some light on the ‘visits’ being made by Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry these days. I want to ask our lawyers’ community how much money and resources of the government are they spending on his rallies and visits, and for what?
For the restoration of judges who will give justice to the poor people who don’t have food to eat, jobs to earn or place to live in. Or for those poor Pakistanis who come daily from far-off villages to courts to seek justice and have to go back disappointed because the worthy lawyers are on strike.
In these days of high prices of fuel, I think it would be better to spend money on providing food to many poor people rather than wasting it on rallies. So please, for God sake, stop burning the resources which are already insufficient and think for the poor people of Pakistan.
AMMAR KAYANI
Faisalabad
IN his interesting article, ‘Obama and the US Muslims’, US-based journalist Jehangir Khattak has lamented that the Democratic candidate for the US presidency, Barack Obama, has disappointed the American Muslims (and other immigrants) by his attitude towards them (July 28).
He says “many blame the ultra-right media for pushing Obama to the wall in his relations with the Muslims by their negative projection” of the latter. He has rightly suggested that in view of the forthcoming elections, Obama needs to court the seven million-strong US Islamic community before they turn away disappointed.
Mr Khattak has also cited columnist Roger Cohen from his June 26 NYT article, wherein Mr Cohen has summed up the popular Muslim sentiment.
“Fear-mongering about Islam is a global industry. It thrives on ignorance. Obama has a unique power to break the cycle, not least by emboldening moderate Muslims to denounce terror. Nothing would do more in the long run for the security of the world”. There is no doubt that Mr Obama, after entering the White House, would be having a golden opportunity to win the world Muslims’ hearts and minds and, thereby, prevent a clash of civilisations.
However, some of the things Senator Obama has said and those that he hasn’t are already having an impact on the Muslim community not just in the US but also globally and on the likely course of relations between Islam and the US.
The most notable has been his wooing of the American Jewish community as well as the statements made during his recent visit to Israel. For instance, he showed his partisanship by saying Jerusalem would be the capital of the Zionist state and that its creation was a ‘miracle’.
Incidentally, some veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle paid a trip to Israel recently and were part of a 23-strong delegation that had also included some South African Jews. They said the situation in that country was worse than apartheid (July 14).
Andrew Feinstein, a former ANC parliament member, said he was shocked to see footage of Jewish “teenagers heaping abuse on Palestinian children as they came out of school and throwing stones at them. And that this should be done in the name of Judaism I find totally reprehensible”.
The June issue of Reader’s Digest has an article about Mr Obama, titled ‘Raising Obama’. It gives a very touching account of his mother, a white lady named Stanley Ann Dunham. Some of the notable points were that she loved the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr; after her divorce from the young Obama’s father, ‘kept up a fond correspondence’ with him even after her marriage to the boy’s Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, to make sure her son knew about his father’s intellect, government jobs and the courtship between his parents.
After her second marriage, she took up a PhD programme in anthropology in Indonesia, which shows her great interest in human beings from all over the world. A friend of hers said: “She was always there for the little guy, particularly the little woman”. The Indonesian stepsister of Mr Obama revealed: “She was … unflinchingly and unwaveringly empathetic”.
Also: “She had an ability to see herself in so many different kinds of people, and that is something she was very strict about with us — that absence of judgment, of acrimony. I think that’s something that’s been given to us”.
Sadly, this wonderful lady died of cancer in 1995 at the age of 52. Barack Obama says that without question she was the most positive influence in his life.
The purpose of mentioning all this is to express my belief that in reality Mr Obama has imbibed his mother’s heartwarming impartiality and cosmopolitanism. Therefore, he should ignore those right-wing extremists who are subtly or otherwise trying to alienate him from the Muslims.
The reason for the violence found amongst some adherents of Islam and the generalised anger in almost all of them is the injustice meted out in places like Palestine, Kashmir, etc. and America’s biased policies. The solution is for America’s next president to be there for the ‘little guy’ — the oppressed Muslim — just as Mr Obama’s mother used to be. Martin Luther King, Jr. had said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”
KHALID CHAUDHRY
Karachi
I FULLY endorse the view of Kunwar Idris expressed in his letter (July 29) that unceremonious removal from service of a top executive like Abdullah Yusuf while on way to attend an international conference at Geneva and later at Moscow is the humiliation of not only an individual but of the whole public service and the country at large.
Abdullah Yusuf was no doubt a hard-working officer who was earnestly committed to collecting more and more revenue for the public exchequer. Under his stewardship, the FBR collected Rs1,002 billion during the fiscal year 2007-08 against the downward revised target of Rs990 billion, thus showing an increase of Rs12 billion.
He was determined to bag additional Rs3 to Rs4 billion in the next few days when the statistics were finalised for the year under review. Addressing a press conference, he had declared that it was the first time in the history of Pakistan that the FBR had crossed the psychological barrier of one trillion rupees (Dawn, July 3). Above all, he was very responsive to public calls.
Whatever the reason of his downfall may be, it is not fair on the part of this government to dismiss a civil servant on way to duty and demoralise the whole cadre. A beleaguered civil service obviously cannot deliver honestly and devotedly; and that goes thoroughly against the public interest.
MOHAMMAD ALEEM SHAIKH
Karachi
I regret to say that my speech on July 30 on the occasion of the visit of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhri in the Bar Room of the Sindh High Court has been somewhat misreported in your esteemed newspaper, and I deem it necessary to clarify its contents. In fact, I never spoke a word about a ‘fresh oath’.
What I had said was that the judges of the Sindh High Court had consciously refused to take the oath under the PCO as a matter of principle, which they still uphold and are proud of it.
They were not looking forward to any restoration at that time, and had, at that time, no hope or expectation of being restored. They are not clamouring for jobs as is being suggested in some quarters.
Whatever decision they take would be in consultation with their colleagues and what they consider to be right in the best interest of the people and the independence of the judiciary. Nobody had any right to impute any motives to them or indulge in any kind of character assassination.
SABIHUDDIN AHMED
(Deposed) Chief Justice
Sindh High Court, Karachi
REFERENCE Zafar Iqbal’s letter (July 23), I agree that the five-rupee coin may be costing more and may not be produced in future. I would also request the SBP to allow the old five-rupee note as legal tender as hundreds of thousands of old five-rupee notes are still lying unutilised with the people.
T. JAFFER
Karachi
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