WHAT are we crowing about? That the donors’ conference was a huge success? Well, money has been in plenty but, if we care to remember, 1.9 billion dollars of it is in the form of grants while the rest would be in the form of loans.

Whichever way we want to dress up this awkward fact, these loans will have to be paid back some time. Our debt burden is already huge and when economic times are rough, as they often are with us, or when the American connection loosens, as often happens when our utility as a frontline ally or whatever diminishes, we have a problem servicing it. Do we want to add to this mountain?

How much better if we had starved ourselves a bit, tightened that proverbial belt which most of us do not wear, and found the money for relief/reconstruction from our own resources. God knows we suffer from no excess of resources and despite all the hoopla about fantastic growth rates in recent years we remain a resource-strapped country. But it doesn’t take 40/40 vision to see how foolishly extravagant we are in so many things. If we were to cut this fat we would be less beholden to others and more self-reliant.

Enough has been written about F-16s, Swedish airborne early warning systems and a new army General Headquarters in Islamabad but while General Musharraf has momentarily taken a step back — saying the F-16 deal is on hold and no final decision has been taken on the Swedish early-warning birds — we can be sure we’ll get these deals in the end. So, even while scrounging for loans, we will be spending huge sums of money on these white elephants.

None is whiter than the new GHQ in Islamabad but it is mind-boggling how the army remains committed to cherished fetishes even when common sense, if nothing else, dictates a different course of action.

Our defence mandarins — collectively an invitation to depression — while waxing eloquent about national security, somehow seem to miss the connection between desire and affordability. We need adequate defence but at a cost we can afford.

Stung by all the criticism about F-16s and SAABs, some retired air force officers have been giving the PAF’s side of the story. But to hear them talk, or write, is to get the impression that war with India is not just a distinct but an imminent possibility, that unless armed to the teeth we will be naked to Indian diktat and aggression. They can’t seem to figure out how small they make Pakistan look when they hold forth in this manner. Pakistan’s is nobody’s plaything and it’s too big to be pushed around.

Moreover, what on earth is our nuke capability for? Doesn’t that give us all the deterrence we need? If it doesn’t, why are we holding on to it?

China is so much huger than Vietnam. But when it attacked Vietnam in 1979, to teach it a lesson, it got a ‘bloody nose’ and suffered heavy casualties. We are not about to attack India, are we? So what are we talking about? Unless of course, giving rein to our wildest fancies, we think India is interested in attacking us.

What we need against India is not aggressive capability — enough of wars to ‘liberate’ Kashmir — but ‘bloody-nose’ capability. That we have and if we don’t why are we keeping such a large military force? So let’s get over this foolishness which decrees that while Pakistan is hard-pressed for money to spend on education and health, it must spend money it can’t afford on expensive aircraft, airborne early warning systems and, the biggest white duck of them all, new GHQ in Islamabad.

Let us count our blessings, however. We can talk about such matters today. As recently as the Zia years, talk of cutting defence expenditure was considered one of the higher forms of treason. Thank God, we are out of those woods at least.

We have had a donors’ conference, fine. We should now have a common sense conference in which we figure out how to do away with megalomania and shortsightedness in the sacred name of national defence.

Take a look, however, at our wonderful sense of timing and public relations. The echoes from the donors’ conference are yet to die down when word comes in the press (the journalist in question deserving praise for this) about the government wanting to buy two expensive executive jets for prime minister travelling.

The defence ministry, in the lamest of all possible excuses, says that the two existing jets meant for high-level commuting have become old and were due to be replaced and that, in any case, the new ones will not be for the “exclusive” use of the prime minister. Good heavens, the mountains struck by the wrath of the gods and the defence ministry at pains to provide a rationale for VVIP travelling.

This is no longer a joke. VVIP perks and other related shenanigans have assumed the status of a major national problem, inducing a darkening of the national mood when the subject comes up for discussion and inspiring visions of Stalinist firing squads.

And it is not exactly as if our VVIP lot is made up of a collection of Einsteins whose safety and comfort should be such a national priority. You have to see them and the cabinet, and indeed officialdom in its various colours, for the thought to cross your mind how much better off the nation would be if these clowns were swept away by a tidal wave.

Pakistan is a poor country needing to build up its resources. But it can do with some urgent weed-clearing and clutter-removing. Remove some of the clutter, cut some of the waste, and see how things improve.

The size of Pakistani government is too big, Islamabad awash with ministries and organizations with nothing much to do, or which simply duplicate the work of the provinces. The cabinet is over-sized, parliament, frankly, is overpaid and it’s a wonder why Senate and National Assembly post-earthquake did not go in for permanent cuts in salary, daily allowances and medical benefits. If we can’t afford a bloated military — and ours is bloated — we certainly can’t afford a bloated and over-expensive parliament. Running a knife through Islamabad and drawing some blood will improve government working.

Just look at non-development expenditure, money spent on defence and administration: it far outstrips revenue earned. To quote Kaisar Bengali (from an article in this paper): “An analysis of Pakistan’s federal public finances for the past five years — from 2000-1 to 2004-5 — shows that while the government collected a total of Rs 2,368 billion in tax revenues, it spent Rs 3,395 billion on non-development heads.”

Another telling point he makes: “Pakistan is not a basket case among the developing economies of the world; rather it possesses the resources to stand on its own feet to a large extent...the stage for petitioning for foreign assistance (for quake reconstruction) (should) be preceded by first reducing (wasteful expenditure).”

We could do with raising the level of public discourse. Instead, there is no shortage of ministerial statements declaiming that the success of the donors conference is a vindication of the far-sighted policies of General Musharraf, etc. When will that happy day arrive when something is done about these enduring monuments to ministerial volubility?

After the quake, the choice lay between hard political and economic decisions (which would have done the nation good in the long run) and petitioning the international community for donations, grants and loans. We took the easy way out and are hailing it as a triumph of statesmanship.

TAILPIECE: The National Volunteer Movement (NVM) for the quake-hit areas announced with such fanfare by General Musharraf is a great idea a good three weeks late in coming. Those who wanted to go up to the mountains did so on their own without waiting for any signal or encouragement from the government. Why is it so hard for officialdom to understand that people trust their own instincts and judgment, they don’t trust the government? Sure, the NVM will cut an impressive figure on official television. But it will have a hard time living up to that image on the ground.