Saudi-Iranian initiative

THE recent talks between Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and Saudi National Security Council official Bandar bin Sultan in Tehran seem to have brought the two countries together for ending the crisis in Lebanon. This is a positive development and needs the support of all those who wish to see peace in the Lebanon. Talking to newsmen in Beirut on Wednesday, Mr Larijani said Iran did not want to see Lebanon turned into a regional battleground, and praised Saudi Arabia’s “firm policy” that aimed at creating understanding among different religions and sects in the region. Mr Larijani, who is also a member of Iran’s national security council, said Riyadh and Tehran had agreed to work together to prevent a civil war in Lebanon, though personally he thought such a possibility did not exist.

Even though the specifics of a joint Saudi-Iranian initiative have not been announced, the two countries are in an excellent position to exert a positive influence on the various parties and personalities in Lebanon with a view to preventing a repeat of the civil war in the seventies that all but destroyed Lebanon, led to the Israeli invasion and sucked in European and American troops with disastrous consequences for all sides. The linchpin in today’s Lebanon is Hezbollah leader Syed Hassan Nasrallah. The outcome of the July-August war has catapulted him and his organisation to unprecedented popularity among the Arab-Islamic peoples. Besides being a resistance group, Hezbollah is also in the mainstream of Lebanese politics and has deputies in parliament. It also has a social welfare network that helps Palestinian and Lebanese families rendered to destitution by Israeli actions or whose members have been killed or abducted by Israel. Unfortunately, Lebanese politics tends to revolve round one’s attitude towards Syria. Lebanon has always been part of Syria, and for reasons of geography and security Damascus has vital stakes in that country. However, the murder of Rafiq Hariri, blamed on Syrian intelligence, turned out to be a seminal event, leading eventually to the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon and a greatly reduced influence on the politics of that country. The government headed by Mr Fuad Siniora handled the 34-day war well, and he was bold enough to ask US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to cancel her trip to Beirut, because she had already made it clear that she was opposed to a ceasefire — so as to give Israel time to destroy as much of Lebanon as possible and decimate Hezbollah. That Israel failed to destroy Hezbollah is another matter. Now in the post-war scenario, the rift between the “pro-western” Siniora government and pro-Syria Hezbollah is only serving to destabilise Lebanon.

The present crisis stems from Hezbollah’s demand for more seats in the Fuad cabinet to make up for the influence Damascus lost after the pullout. The two sides should realise that the issue is more than a question of a few cabinet posts. With nearly a million people displaced, most infrastructure damaged or destroyed, and the possibility of a “punitive” war by Israel real, the Fuad government and Hezbollah should realise the importance of national unity. Saudi Arabia and Iran can use their influence to move the two sides away from confrontation and make them realise the importance of cooperation focussed on rebuilding their devastated country. The 7.6 billion dollars pledged by the donors in Paris last month will not come in unless the Lebanese first put their house in order.

Rational use of water

THE Indus River System Authority is justified in complaining that Punjab and Sindh should not have requested water allocations that vastly exceeded actual consumption in the last 10 days of the current Rabi season. According to Irsa, some 200,000 cusecs were not utilised because of the inflated “indents” submitted by the two provinces as well as unforeseen discharges by Wapda for power-generation purposes. It is now feared that this failure to adhere to the approved water discharge plan may lead to shortages in the Kharif season which was expected to benefit from a carry-over stock of nearly a million acre feet of water. While this irresponsible behaviour by the two provinces and the power utility is uncalled for, it is debatable whether additional water flowing into the sea can be called a ‘waste’.

The plight of the lower riparian is consistently lost on those in the land of plenty. A significant reduction in flows downstream of Kotri has, over the last two decades or so, resulted in the loss of over two million acres of arable land to sea intrusion. Hundreds of villages in Sindh are being wiped out as the sea water moves inland, forcing a mass migration to towns and cities. People who were once farmers have been reduced to lives of penury weaving nets or cleaning fish and shrimp in Karachi’s Ibrahim Hyderi. It may not be possible to fully reclaim the ground that has been lost through callous neglect but progress can be made by increasing, not checking, the amount of water that flows into the sea. This need not exacerbate the growing water crisis. The answer lies in an integrated management policy that focuses on the harnessing and storage of floodwater as well as rational use of a precious resource. Measures that require urgent attention include the lining of canals and other watercourses, land-levelling to reduce run-off velocity and improve moisture retention, and the adoption of modern farming techniques that provide a higher yield per unit of water. The draft National Water Policy must be approved and implemented forthwith through a consensus between the provinces. Water is being wasted in the canals without lining and in the fields, not in the sea.

The right to divorce

WHILE there is nothing to celebrate in the dissolution of a marriage, it is encouraging to note that women no longer feel themselves enslaved in marriage and are seeking divorces. This can be gauged from the increase in the number of women who sought to dissolve their marriages in Rawalpindi. According to a recent report, there were nearly 3,900 family cases filed by women that were pending in courts in Rawalpindi in 2006, up by 1,200 over the year before; of that number nearly 50 per cent of the cases were for divorce filed by women. This proves that women are gaining more awareness about their rights and feel strong enough to end abusive or oppressive marital ties. That recent amendments in the law have further empowered them to exercise their rights is also a welcome development. Society too is waking up to the realisation that education is vital for women. More and more women are looking for job opportunities that were previously considered a man’s domain. Organisations too are coming forward to offer more job opportunities to women along with men. All these are positive signs of progress.

However, there is still a long way to go before women can feel they are truly empowered. Retrogressive elements like illiterate clerics are averse to the idea of a woman’s right to divorce her husband no matter what the reason for it, and as a result many women do not know that they have that right. There is still a lot of stigma associated with divorce; many believe that rising divorce rates are a sign of the breaking down of the family system. These misconceptions and taboos need to be broken Non-government organisations must continue to educate society on shedding discriminatory attitudes towards women.

Reforming the civil services

BUREAUCRACY in Pakistan is in the melting pot. It is assailed from many sides. The political leaders are very dissatisfied with it. The military commanders do not approve of its performance. It is being deprived of its most lucrative territory within the government through rapid privatisation of large public sector units where they got much higher emoluments than what they get in the government proper.

On the other hand, private sector managers are taking over their jobs, the examples being that of Abdullah Yusuf, chairman of the Central Board of Revenue and Tariq Hamid, Chairman of Wapda. The World Bank and other aid agencies have voiced their dissatisfaction with the bureaucracy and want total reform in it before large-scale new aid could be given to Pakistan in several sectors.

Armed forces personnel have taken over a thousand civilian posts in the government. And the Federal Public service commission is headed by a general and more and more top civilian posts are going that way. And now there is a move for scrapping the ten per cent merit quota in the federal government services following raising of Balochistan's quota to 6 per cent. The last meeting of the federal cabinet could not take a decision in this regard as there was strong opposition to that within it.

There has been demand for a higher quota to the rural areas of Sindh in the federal services on the basis of their backwardness, but that was opposed in the cabinet by some ministers who argued that some parts of Punjab were equally backward as is rural Sindh. These are highly sensitive issues on which decisions have to be taken with a great deal of care to avoid needless recriminations. A similar demand is being raised for promotion to top positions in the government on the basis of quota system for jobs. It was voiced at a tumultuous meeting of a special committee of the Senate where it was pointed out that Balochistan officers seldom reach the top. It was said that out of 52 secretaries in the federal setup only one was a grade 21 officer from Balochistan and he too was an acting secretary for parliamentary affairs.

It was said that out of 210 officers promoted from grade 19 to 20 during the last five years only 14 belonged to Balochistan. And Dr. Abdul Malik criticised the promotion of 10 army majors to secretary-level officers who have reportedly not cleared the Federal Public Service Commission examination. There was severe criticism in the committee on promotion or debarring of officers on the basis of secret reports of intelligence agencies which have acquired a big say in the affair. And often these reports are found utterly wrong.

There were also protests against growing examples of holders of master’s degree serving under matriculate officers. There was a report that 171 gazetted officers in the federal bureaucracy are just matriculates against 170 master’s degree holders serving in the lowest tiers of grade 1 and 2. It was said that 70 per cent of the bureaucracy consisted of undergraduates.

In such a situation, the World Bank has offered to provide funds for organisational and institutional capacity building in the public sector if the government would first reform the civil services. It asserts that the performance of the public sector cannot be improved without reforming the civil services. The bank has been reiterating this for a long time now. When the government needs large funds, particularly for the five large dams, an efficient and effective civil service is essential and it has asked the government to formulate a new strategy for good governance by June this year after a countrywide assessment of the prevailing ills and the available human resource potential.

The government has appointed a high-powered commission under Dr. Ishrat Hussain, a former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan to suggest comprehensive reforms after examining every aspect of the administration and the problem it faces. Dr. Ishrat has been at work for a long time now and what kind of recommendations he makes will be of keen interest to many.

And now a new controversy has arisen regarding the integrity or reliability of the statistics provided by the government. Doubts about the veracity of the facts and figures provided by the Central Statistical Organisation have been raised by non-officials earlier but now the officials too have joined the ranks of the doubters.

The World Bank has expressed its doubts regarding the reliability of the poverty reduction figures provided by the government. For the years 2001-05 the World Bank estimate for the reduction in poverty is half of the official claim and the World Bank continues to repeat that. The State Bank has now voiced its doubt about the authenticity of the official statistics and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has been calling for credible and reliable statistics. There is certainly need for real improvement in this area so that the figures are beyond doubt and above question. Distinct improvement is essential in the areas of inflation, money supply and income distribution.

The quality of the officials depends largely on the quality of education they receive, and that has been poor, and on what they are paid for their services. And now the ministry of education has prepared a paper for imparting education up to matric level to all children. The scheme if fully implemented will cost six per cent of the GDP and the government has to strain a great deal to find the necessary resources.

Such an objective has been claimed from time to time by successive governments without really meaning to achieve that in view of the forbidding costs. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government was the first one to announce such a policy in 1972 and schools and colleges were nationalised and that free education was to be imparted up to the matric level. But the educational facilities available were less than adequate. So, the quality of education degenerated and the education system did not expand to meet the nationwide demand.

Then came private schools in large numbers to meet the demand for quality education, but most people could not afford their high fees. Since then, the imparting of free education up to the matric level has been the ideal of almost every government but they could not find the financial resources in spite of the rising aid for the social sector. This government too wants to make a move in that direction and has come up with a policy paper at a time when the actual outlay on education is 2.7 per cent of the GDP.

Minister for Education Javed Ashraf Qazi says the government is now determined to allocate four per cent of the GDP for education sector which is the prescribed Unesco target. There could be some adjustment here and there he says but the president and the prime minister had approved the target. According to the Unesco, Pakistan is second to Nigeria in the number of out-of-school children who total 6.5 million and 80 per cent of them had never been enrolled in a school, ten per cent were dropouts, while the remaining could go to school at a later stage.

Spending six per cent of the GDP instead of 2.7 per cent, last year’s figure, is way off now. But spending four per cent is feasible with some real commitment. But what matters is not only how much is spent but how fruitfully and purposefully it is spent and an adequate number of qualified and dedicated teachers have to be recruited and enough number of text books provided. We should not have a repeat of Sap-1 and Sap-2 with their vast waste. And there should be no ghost schools and ghost teachers galore as we had in the past.

How the government and the educational authorities are able to overcome the resistance in society to girls going to schools remain to be seen. Quality education can pave the way for a quality civil service although there can be many hindrances to that in a starkly feudal system. But if rapid economic progress and sustained high rate of growth are the objectives, then quality education is absolutely necessary. Only truly educated people can stand up for their rights and strive for democratic norms.

In such an environment we cannot dispense with merit while recruiting the officials, which at 10 per cent of the overall services is a small figure. It may result in candidates of the majority province getting in through the merit quota as well as through domicile that those from other provinces. But the federal setup has to pay its price.

In this age of technology with intense competition in the area of trade and culture merit cannot be sacrificed. If a compromise has to be reached it has to be a moderate one.

While there is a scramble for government jobs and quota system is the means to protect the interests of the provinces, the private sector, particularly the multinational companies, are paying higher salaries up to two million rupees a month.

So the government jobs are losing the attraction for those who are more enterprising and talented. Even the foreign service has lost its appeal. The success of Shaukat Aziz as an international banker shows where the private sector service can lead to. Ultimately what matters is what comes out of the report of Dr. Ishrat Hussain’s commission and how much it shows the way to good governance and reform of the system. The report should be ready early and be given effect without heedless delay.