Greater interaction with Kabul
THE foreign minister has just been elaborating on his statements made earlier after his visit to Afghanistan last week and the joint statement that was subsequently issued. Mr Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri’s main interaction in Kabul was with his Afghan counterpart, but he also met President Hamid Karzai. Issues that have grabbed the headlines relate to better military and intelligence cooperation along the troubled Pakistan-Afghanistan border, with its post-Taliban history of clashes and incursions, and exchange of prisoners. Mr Kasuri said over 600 Pakistanis held in Afghan jails would soon be repatriated to Pakistan, where they would remain in custody pending a thorough screening. Many of them may turn out to be innocent victims of the ringing calls for jihad by some of our religious parties; others may be ideologically committed and trained fighters whose release might pose a greater dilemma.
The Americans continue to have a say in all security matters relating to Afghanistan and Mr Kasuri pointedly said that the US had agreed to the transfer of prisoners. Whether on this score or on the question of hunting for Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants in the border regions, what should be kept in mind, however, is that the Americans are quickly losing interest in Afghanistan, with Iraq now a greater priority. Kabul and Islamabad will have to learn to deal with each other independently of the US and to take decisions bilaterally in their own interests. This is our neighbourhood, and the two of us should decide how we want to run our affairs.
Spurred no doubt by the blunt remarks of the Afghan finance minister earlier this month, when he had more or less asked Pakistan to stop complaining about what India was doing and instead do more on its own part, Mr Kasuri has also reported on new measures of economic and social cooperation. PIA flights to Kabul are due to be increased, and Pakistani banks will start operations in Afghanistan. Pakistan will also build secondary schools and medical clinics, and it is in these fields where Pakistani help can most usefully improve the quality of life of the people of Afghanistan. The domination of the Northern Alliance and what an international organization described the other day as exclusion of the Pashtun ethnic majority from critical areas of government have been an obstacle in closer Pakistan-Afghan ties. But Mr Kasuri’s suggestion for more people-to-people exchanges should help to overcome some of the mistrust and misgivings dating back to the Taliban era. A representative parliamentary delegation from Pakistan should be asked to visit Afghanistan soon so that it can widen the ambit of the political interaction between the two countries and deal with reservations on both sides. The utility of such contacts has just been proved in the attempts underway to improve Indo-Pakistan relations.
Power sector targets
THE failure of both the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) and the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) to achieve a turnaround despite injections of around Rs 55 billion during the 2002-03 fiscal year is a cause for concern. At a time when there are public expectations of an improvement in the working of these two power utilities and hopes that this would lead to a drop in power rates for consumers, news of bad performance is not welcome at all. The blame for this situation is attributed to the weak financial position of both the utilities as well as higher transmission and distribution losses. The actual problem lies more perhaps in the inability of the administration at Wapda and KESC to cut these losses significantly.
At a briefing on the power sector last month, President Pervez Musharraf had echoed the sentiments of most Pakistanis when he said electricity tariffs needed to be cut for all consumers, as the existing charges were not justifiable. Lower tariffs are also needed for industrial units to make Pakistan’s exports competitive in world markets. Taking the cue from this, the government then informed the World Bank earlier this month that power tariffs could be reduced “considerably” by 2005-06 by which time the country would attain a sufficient hydro-electric (hydel) power production capacity. The inauguration of the first phase of the 1,450-megawatt Ghazi Barotha Hydropower project, which will initially provide an additional 290 megawatts of electricity to the national gird, is a step in that direction. Once the Ghazi Barotha project is fully functional, the thermal-hydel ratio of power generation will change significantly in favour of hydel generation. This is desirable if the cost of production is to be reduced.
As can be gauged from the latest figures, the larger issue that needs to be addressed is improving the performance of both Wapda and KESC. The two utilities suffer from heavy line losses, which are then passed on to the consumers, and also from a weak financial position caused by non-recovery of monies owed to them. This is the crux of the problem with regard to higher power rates. Line losses stand at 25 per cent for Wapda and 40 per cent for KESC, when the internationally accepted level is under 10 per cent. Much of these losses arise from power theft as well as from an old and inefficient distribution grid. There has been little work done in this regard despite the fanfare with which the army took over the utility in 1999 and its promise to rectify the situation. To this day, power breakdowns are frequent, and little has been done to check power theft or collect on defaulters. Instead of tackling this issue head on, Wapda has decided to take the easy way out through raising power tariffs.
The question that needs to be asked is for how long the Wapda and KESC managements will use this tactic to cover up what is essentially an organizational failing. And, more importantly, for how long will the government play along with this tactic? It comes as a wake-up call for the government that officials of the World Bank and the IMF have asked the government to reprioritize in the power sector. Instead of launching new and ambitious projects which the government can ill afford on account of financial stringency, it should demand that Wapda and KESC get their act together and assume full responsibility for reducing line losses and getting defaulters to pay their dues. Both utilities are believed to be over-staffed. Both suffer from a top-heavy administration. Both have acquired a reputation for inefficiency and waste, the cost of which the country cannot continue to bear endlessly without grave damage to its economic future. It is time they both made a supreme effort to straighten out their finances failing which the government will be under an obligation to adopt very drastic steps to correct an unbearable situation.