The Year in Retrospect
Prime Minister Ms Benazir Bhutto has recently held marathon sessions with her ministerial colleagues reviewing the performance of each ministry in some detail. This is a welcome exercise and if she can take incisive action, cutting through the smokescreen that the bureaucrats are capable of manipulating to cover their misdeeds and shortcomings, sometime making their nominal masters, the various ministers unwitting collaborators, we are going to have measure of accountability, performance-oriented maybe but a start nevertheless.
The very fact that Ms Benazir has lasted over a year has confounded many skeptics. Given the horrendous problems she inherited compounded by the complications initiated by some of her non-elected Advisors any lesser mortal would have just upped and headed for greener pastures. There are any number of reasons to disagree with Ms Benazir but one must admire raw courage and ample evidence of that she has shown, overcoming the rigours of the last month of her pregnancy.
Inexperienced in administration, frankly it showed in the shuffling of bureaucrats. The loyalty of some bureaucrats is always suspect. Always servile towards the government in power, the consummate bureaucrat, at least those who matter in policy-making positions, surreptitiously keeps lines of communications open to the potential powers-that-be in the Opposition.
The PPP regime is being harried by sensitive information leaks, unfortunate in not determining friend from foe. A bureaucrat who gives his honest opinion which may be contrary to the current political wishes must be counted at the very least as reliable; those who acquiesce quickly are good for giving a quick stab in the back. Ms Benazir would do well to distinguish between the two. She must also avoid ill-advised debilitating conflict with the President about assorted issues like the Sirohey affair, the Judges tangle, etc.
Her next major problem is tackling rampant corruption. Accusations close to home that her husband and father-in-law may be involved in big-time chicanery are hurting her credibility. The rumours are flying fairly thick and fast, very correctly she defended her family honour on the floor of the House by challenging the Opposition to take any evidence to court. However, that is not enough, she must take concrete steps to ensure that the middle-man image of her kith and kin is erased from the public mind. Very few people get the opportunity that she has got early in her political life, the dynamics that she creates has great potential for this nation. The greatest tragedy would be the erosion of her credibility, both within and without the country.
Her husband is a legitimate businessman, while no one can deny him his democratic right to earn money, he has unfortunately to bend over backwards to avoid any hint of wrongdoing. One has to pay a price to be married to a charismatic political symbol, Ms Benazir’s husband has to carry a “holier than thou” cross very prominently on his shoulders.
Ms Benazir has to deal firmly with corruption and establish accountability in her government, it speaks much for her that given all the accusations hurled, no one has ever actually accused her personally of being corrupt. The PM has to translate this great credibility into clean government down the line, her people expect it of her, anything less would not be synonymous to be adoration that the masses have for her.
She has tackled her economic problems astutely. Ms Benazir has been well advised by AGN Kazi and VA Jafery, both former governments of the State Bank of Pakistan. While we are far from being out of the woods, galloping inflation has been controlled, to an extent home remittances are way up showing new confidence by expatriate Pakistanis, stock market performances have been very satisfactory, privatisation is in the air, sanctions for private investment are way up and so on and so forth, amounting to a satisfactory economic performance. However, non-bank borrowings have also gone up and exports have not really been stimulated. An outstanding achievement has been the fresh Textile Accord with USA. A clear jump of US$ 50 million is an excellent result, the personality and personal credibility Ms Benazir in the US Congress seems to have been a deciding factor.
There are some glaring aberrations present in the economy which must be rectified, the Board of Investment needs to have a full-time political manager. There is a vast credibility gap between the sanctioning of investment proposal and the availability of requisite funds. Unless honest-to-goodness investment banks/companies can mobilise funds from the private sector, the sanctions will amount to mere paper plans. There is a definite improvement in the economic climate.
While her minister for Water and Power is an activist and there has been a conscious PPP effort in this area, mobilisation of the private sector power projects is a disaster area. One comes to the conclusion that despite the best of intentions there is no real change. The Hub River Xenel Project has still not seen the light of day despite the express wishes of the PM and Mr Leghari. While it was to be expected that nothing in the private sector would ever come to fruition while the unlamented Akram Khan (of WAPDA fame) was the Advisor to the Ministry on Private Sector Power Projects, his final retirement from the scene on October 24 has made no difference, only the style has changed to honey and sugar.
None of the gentlemen evaluating the projects is ever available, either they are too busy to come to the telephone, too busy on the telephone planning their itineraries abroad or they are simply abroad. One is constrained in pointing out that when time is lost in processing a case forward accumulating revenue is lost to the GDP, what do these characters care? Every minute lost in bringing energy project on-stream into the national economy should be accounted for as criminal economic neglect. Power is fuel to the economy, this nation needs dedicated people in this prime sector of the economy. The PM has the BoI directly under her own tutelage, the Minister for Water and Power should have the Private Sector Power Projects under his day-to-day guidance.
There is a fire in Sindh today and it is barely beneath the surface, it is destroying the foundations of national integrity and threatens to spread all over Pakistan, releasing the evil forces of anarchy which in turn may well engulf this land of our dreams. A mindless fire, it does not care for race, religion or creed, has no respect for wealth or age, it is simply all-consuming and we are responsible for it. Who is it who once said, “we have met the enemy and it is us?” We are at sorry pass when brothers must be held criminally responsible for the blood of their own brethren. The time now has come to put a stop to all this.
The state of confrontation between the Federal Government and Punjab Province must end forthwith. The first step is for all concerned to not only accept the verdict of the electorate but to respect it in word and deed. For better or for worse Ms Benazir’s PPP won the 1988 elections, it was (and is) their peoples-given right to rule Pakistan till 1993.
While the Opposition must exercise their democratic right of check on the excesses of PPP (and some unelectable element in the PPP have a tendency of extraordinary administrative excesses given freedom of movement), it is also incumbent upon the Opposition to ensure that the process of democracy does not suffer by creating unstable governing conditions. This is also true for the Centre vis-a-vis the Provinces. This destabilisation effort releases the forces of anarchy like the proverbial genie in the bottle, once released it is difficult to put it back into confinement. The attempt to buy over votes of elected MNAs (and now MPAs) is reprehensible, it demeans the concept of democracy, bringing to surface the worst fears of the masses about their elected representatives, the last straw would be the complete erosion of confidence in their integrity.
The rule of law must prevail, that is the democratic way. It certainly involves accountability but it is based on debate, reason and logic being used for convincing arguments rather than turning to the use of force. Sincerity of purpose is appreciated by the masses in contrast to the guile and hypocrisy we are witnessing, above all there must be a supreme commitment to the amelioration of the lot of the unfortunate millions, in the political ego trips this seems to have been forgotten. In strict technical terms we have made some progress this year in the democratic process, the survivability of an elected government is a definite plus point for the nation. It is inconsequential who were the rulers, that the rule was democratic is a great success for Pakistan. Being the incumbent PM, Ms Benazir deserves the laurels for being “man” enough to go through a very tough year with dignity.
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