A welcome accord

THE peace agreement signed on Tuesday between the government and the tribal militants could turn out to be seminal for North Waziristan if the two sides abided by it. Signed by seven tribesmen on behalf of the Shura (advisory council) and by the Political Agent of North Waziristan on behalf of the government, the 16-clause agreement is comprehensive and seeks to remove the causes that led to the conflict in the area. The key clauses include the militants’ pledge not to attack Pakistan security forces and state property and to stop cross-border movements for attacks in Afghanistan. As for foreigners in the area, they must either leave the country, or, if they cannot, live peacefully in accordance with the law of the land and Tuesday’s agreement. In return, the government, which had already released most prisoners, agreed not to launch any ground or air operations in the area, to pull the army out of the checkpoints (to be replaced by the tribal Khasdar force) and pay compensation for the loss of lives and property. The militants will not run a parallel administration, there will be no target killings, and no ban on the display of arms, but the tribesmen will not carry heavy weapons. The crucial clause regarding the writ of the government says, “There will be no target killings (by the militants), and no parallel administration in the agency. The writ of the state will prevail in the area”.

The man behind the agreement is NWFP Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai. Ever since he became governor in May, Mr Aurakzai, a native of the area, has been giving priority to a political approach instead of force to resolve the crisis. Credit also goes to Maulana Fazlur Rahman, whose party is in power in the NWFP, for his help in ending a conflict that has led to the death of hundreds of Pakistani soldiers and militants, besides collateral damage that included the death of a large number of civilians and the destruction of property. Already a poverty-stricken area, North Waziristan suffered further economic dislocation because of the presence of some foreign militants, who, egged on by the Taliban, were attacking Pakistani security forces and targeting state property. These were senseless acts, for the foreign militants and their supporters in the tribal area had no higher aim than that of destabilising Pakistan and, where possible, Afghanistan. In what way this serves the cause of Islam — to which they are dedicated — is beyond comprehension, for the vast majority of victims on both sides were Muslim soldiers and civilians.

On the whole, the government has conceded more than the militants. The ticklish issue is that of foreign militants from Central Asia, Chechnya and some other countries. They cannot go back to their countries, and for that reason the only option before them is to settle down in the area, maintain peace and abide by the law of the land. It is too early, of course, to say whether the peace will hold. But a beginning has been made, and only time will show whether the two sides stick to what has been called an “unprecedented agreement” for North Waziristan. The peace in the tribal belt should now enable the government to focus on Balochistan. The post-Bugti situation there is explosive, and the government would do well to give up force and resolve the crisis by peaceful means.

Controlling pesticide use

PAKISTAN’S first pesticide manufacturing plant, expected to open later this month near Lahore, will reportedly save the country nearly four billion rupees a year in foreign exchange. The annual turnover in the pesticide trade is estimated at Rs13 billion but local production is limited largely to packaging or formulation of imported base matter. China is the source of roughly 90 per cent of pesticide imports while the rest come primarily from India via the UAE. Smuggled pesticides — including DDT, which was officially deregistered in 1992 — are also widely available in the country. Given that chemical pesticides and herbicides are unlikely, at least in the foreseeable future, to lose their scale of use in agriculture, any domestic initiative that can reduce the pesticide import bill has to be appreciated from a fiscal point of view.

On a more holistic level, however, there can be no excuse for the government’s apathy towards the rational use of pesticides and its failure to encourage integrated pest management strategies. The plant protection department of the food, agriculture and livestock ministry appears to be concerned primarily with protecting the interests of importers and potential producers, instead of focusing on the sustainable use of pesticides. In the process, immense harm is being done to the health of farmers, who are directly exposed to toxic chemicals, as well as the consumers of agricultural produce. Deadly class I and II pesticides that feature in the UN FAO’s ‘dirty dozen’ list of proscribed products are used with abandon in Pakistan. These highly toxic chemicals have now entered the food chain and may already be playing havoc with the environment. Studies have shown that less than 0.1 per cent of applied pesticides actually reach the targeted pests, while the rest end up contaminating the soil, streams, rivers and groundwater reservoirs as well as the atmosphere. Beneficial plants and animals are killed indiscriminately along with the pests, which often develop a resistance when only one type of pesticide is used repeatedly and in incorrect dosages. Besides encouraging the production of chemical pesticides, the authorities must urgently explore the potential of integrated pest management, which involves combining the use of chemical agents with naturally occurring biopesticides, such as neem oil, and encouraging crop rotation and diversification. Chemical pesticides may not go away but their use can certainly be restricted.

Shameful and criminal

READING about the plight of a widow in Khanewal — where a group of men stripped her naked as a punishment for her son’s alleged misbehaviour with their female cousin — is a reminder of how little has changed since the infamous Nawabpur incident. Then in 1984, a group of women was paraded naked by influential men and a union council member as an act of revenge. But despite publicity given to that episode, it has done little to shame people to keep out of such repugnant acts. In 2002, a woman was paraded half-naked, after having her head and eyebrows shaved and her face blackened, in southern Punjab after a jirga refused to listen to her reasons for leaving her husband. One year later, an elderly woman councillor was also paraded naked near Sargodha by tribal members as a punishment for involving herself in a brawl with the tribe. It is baffling how one woman’s honour can only be restored by humiliating another. That women today are still being used as pawns in acts of vengeance is abhorring. What’s worse is that those who perpetrate such barbaric inhuman crimes seem to get away, encouraging others to follow suit.

There is some solace in hearing that the woman in Khanewal chose not to be browbeaten and registered an FIR and that the police have arrested two men for their crime. While the legal process takes its own course, without any pressure or interference from any quarters, the larger issue needs to be taken up at the social and political levels. The government needs to initiate an awareness campaign against such crimes if it wants to contain them. People need to be made aware of the repercussions of their disgraceful actions. And if justice is denied to women, fewer will have the courage to step forward to report such abuses. This must not be allowed to happen.

Menace of red-tape culture

PRESIDENT Musharraf has been attacking the ubiquitous red tape that stifles the administrative system in the country. He has done that several times in recent weeks, particularly when he meets foreign investors or inaugurates their projects.

He wants the red tape that exasperates the foreign investors and makes them run from pillar to post to expedite official investment decisions to be swept off so that far more foreign investment could come.

In business time is money, more so in big business that is highly competitive. So the foreign investors want the investment decisions to be taken by the government and the necessary support facilities provided to them quick. Instead what the president sees is the investment process clogged by an excess of red tape. It is a case of too many cooks spoiling a broth.

When there is a rise in corruption the usual response is to appoint more officers to check it. The result is: the more the officials, the more the red tape and eventually greater the corruption. You cannot catch a thief through paperwork. Such attempts in the past have usually resulted in more forgery and more counterfeit rubber stamps.

Northcote Parkinson said that work expands according to the number of hands available. Corruption too increases in our midst if the officials who participated in the decision-making are too many. Anyway the more the hands a decision has to pass through, the more chances of the officials seeking illegal gratification. So if corruption breeds red tapism, red tapism in its turn breeds more corruption. A few fake rubber stamps are easy to get hold of to “sanction” a lot of things.

There has been talk of a paperless office following the popularity of the computers, internet and email. But that has not become a reality, admits Alvin Toffler author of Future Shock who spoke of it in the 1980s. The paper is still found handy in transactions.

The computer in Pakistan instead of decreasing the number of government employees beginning with the file carrying chaprasis has increased the number of its employees. At the central, provincial and local level they exceed four million in number and more than half that number is with provincial governments.

And with the local government system expanding, the number of its employees is also rising substantially. More teachers for new schools and new doctors and nurses for public hospitals would mean a far larger staff in the provincial and local government levels. We have to pay a price for the large population, increasing officially by 1.9 per cent and actually more.

Look at the anti-corruption departments. While the National Accountability Bureau steals the limelight, there is a prime minister’s inspection team and in the provinces the chief minister’s inspection teams. There are the provincial anti-corruption departments. At the centre there is the FIA (Federal Investigation Agency) which is truly dreaded.In addition there are the federal and provincial ombudsmen to decide about the wrongs done to the people who seek their help.

How much of corruption are these various agencies able to check, besides the headline making NAB with its political bias or which investigates cases assigned to it by the government. If such a system designed to prevent corruption fails in its primary duty as the annual reports of the auditor-general show, it is going to block or delay foreign investment.

When Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the prime minister, a gang had set up a parallel prime minister’s office in Bahawalpur and was making land allotments merrily or issuing other certificates liberally and collecting large sums. The fraud was uncovered with its numerous PM’s office letterheads and seals. Usually such fraudulent setups have far better rubber stamps and other instruments of forgery than the real office.

Former Saudi Arabia Consul-General Bakr Gazzaz told me the forged Saudi visas in Pakistan had always a far better rubber stamp than his visa office had.

Meanwhile, a comprehensive consumer protection strategy approved by the federal cabinet in 2004 remains unimplemented because of an excess of red tape. Too many agencies have to work together to make it a success to protect the harried consumer both from high prices and the poor quality of the products put on sale. Schemes under which too many agencies have to work together usually gather dust in government offices unless there is an intervention from the top.

A consumer protection ordinance was promulgated by the governor of Sindh some months ago. It has not become law as it has not been approved by the contentious Sindh assembly.

Now the president wants greater fiscal devolution to the provinces and the local government instead of an excess of fiscal power being concentrated in the hands of the central government. It is good for the provinces and the local governments to know their fiscal powers and their taxation powers instead of depending too much on the centre for fiscal doles. But how long would the process take before the devolution is completed. He should see to it that decisions are taken quick and implemented swiftly. The Sindh chief minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim wants further enhancement of the role of the CM’s inspection team. He wants the chairman of the inspection team Tariq Saleem Lone to establish a think tank to review the ongoing development work. But instead of a think tank, he should be setting up an experts cell to evaluate the development performance in the province and determine how well the funds have been used.

A great deal is expected from the Administrative Reorganisation Commission headed by Dr. Ishrat Hussain, former governor of the State bank of Pakistan, who has the guidance of the private sector as well.

His report on reorganising the government should be very comprehensive and lead to good governance after its approval by parliament.

The government should also ask the auditor-general to come up with more comprehensive reports on the misuse of public funds and as early as possible and not after the culprits have vanished from the scene. And the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly should examine such reports more thoroughly and penalise those who misappropriated Public funds or misused them.

The secretaries to the government are complaining that while some ministers force them to take wrong decisions the PAC censures the officials and not the original ‘culprit’ ministers. Recently there was an instance of Law Minister Wasi Zafar directing his additional secretary to spend all the relief funds meant for the whole country in his own constituency and then ask for more. At some stage she said it was enough and no more. So he wanted to take punitive measures against her which produced widespread resentment in the secretariat. Eventually the minister had his way and he was transferred to another ministry. The officials need protection from such ministerial excesses.

Now a new problem has arisen in the farm of a large number of ghost workers or officials on the governments payrolls. Sindh is famous for its ghost brigades in too many departments including ghost teachers, ghost doctors in addition to ghost schools which has been well publicised.

Recently when the Nazim of Karachi Mustafa Kamal asked for all his staff to come out for relief work during the rains, he came across a sizable number of ghost workers on the city government rolls. What he has done with them is not known.

In Britain, Leslie Chapman who was under-secretary to the government wrote a book Your disobedient servant in which he said that 40 per cent of the government’s expenditure would be saved if the schemes were well prepared and the money well spent. By those standards, the amount of money wasted or misappropriated in the Pakistan should be much larger.

What matters is not that crimes are well exposed. But equally important is that the money misused or misappropriated is fully recovered and not let the beneficiaries’ children use the funds and become political leaders, ministers, industrialists or other kinds of tycoons. There should be no discrimination in this regard whether they are civilians or retired military officers or traditional leaders. Waste of Public funds through the import of very expensive cars for officials and ministers should also be prevented.

Now the secretaries to the government are to be given extra benefits including yet another plot of land in Islamabad and twenty per cent extra pay and other benefits. That may prevent more and more secretaries to follow the wrong orders or advice of the ministers so that they stay as secretaries and do not forfeit such benefits to a non-secretary’s post.

The president has told the foreign investors that if the red tape stood in their way, they should approach him. Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore did the same to attract more foreign investment.

The same should hold good for domestic investors as well. The country needs far more investment both from foreign and domestic investors. If the domestic investment is not large enough the foreign investors can hesitate and such an eventuality should be avoided.