Highway to Heaven
Mr Ghulam Murtaza Jatoi, Federal Minister for Communications, in answer to a Parliamentary Question during the Question Hour Session of the National Assembly stated that the Islamabad-Lahore portion of the Trans-Pakistan Motorway will cost Rs 23.686 billion for its 339 kilometre length, having a six lane highway with four pavements. The cost per kilometre thus works out to approximately Rs 70 million. An enterprising engineer has worked out that this would come to about Rs 280 per square foot, the cost of construction commensurate to a house being built with moderately luxurious finish and furnishings. At this rate it would certainly be many times costlier than the construction of a similar highway in USA, Japan or any one of the EEC countries, about as much as for a modern aircraft runway capable of taking the heaviest aircraft payloads e.g a fully loaded C-5A Galaxy.
The contract seems to have been awarded with unseemingly haste to a Korean-based Multi-national (MNC), Daewoo Corporation, which is a major name in many industrial fields but does not have much of a track record in the way of constructing highways. A rather damning Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) predating the Letter of Intent seems also to have surfaced, evidencing mal-intention.
There is the matter of an earlier feasibility report prepared by competent consultants that indicated that the cost of the project would be between Rs 8-9 billion and the fact that while the Government of Pakistan (GoP) paid out Rs 224 million for the present report, only Rs 160 million or so seems to have gone to the Consultants. Projected initially as a Build-Own-Transfer (BoT) scheme in which the Sponsors would raise finances for construction through their own efforts and influence while obtaining repayment by the levying of toll tax on the highway for use thereof, we now learn that GoP has to dish out fully 60% of the funds i.e. Rs 14.2116 billion while Daewoo will bring in only Rs 9.4744 billion. On the face of it there seems to be a departure from the parameters laid out for BOT schemes in general and for highways in particular.
The last but not the least of the concerns has been the priority being awarded to the present project in supersession to other schemes really necessary to improve the road communications of this country. Does this project have a socio-economic impact on the nation as a whole and in the life of the people living in the area that this roadway will pass through? Given the fact that Sher Shah Suri had built the Grand Trunk Road about 500 or so years ago, one can imagine the enthusiasm of the Prime Minister, Mohammad Nawaz Sharif, to make his mark in the history books as a great builder of roads in his home constituency of the Punjab. The PM could have made a greater impact by putting all his weight behind the elusive Indus Highway that certainly has enormous socio-economic benefit for all the people of Pakistan besides having strategic value since our present North-South highway is perilously close to the Indian border.
These facts and more have been brought out by Salman Taseer in his Reference to the Speaker of the National Assembly against the PM, as usual he has erred in giving the charges a very vitiated political colour and thus to cast doubt on the credibility of some of the facts. As one knows only too well the discrediting of some facts puts any case in disarray, whatever may be the truth. In his enthusiasm to go for the jugular, Salman Taseer may be guilty of over-kill, a particular trait that is a common PPP political ailment and one that more often than not, boomerangs.
While all the heat has been taken by the political government, what about the bureaucrats in the Ministry of Communications? The Federal Secretary, Mr Salman Faruqui is remarkably Reagan-like in having a Teflon hide. A favourite loyalist of the decade-long Martial Law era where he commanded considerable clout in his various appointments, Mr Faruqui managed a Houdini-act in coming out of the cold during the Ms Benazir regime and becoming a gilded member of the inner circle in being appointed an Additional Secretary in the PM’s Secretariat. As if that was not a virtuoso feat, he has one upped all by landing on his feet again in the present regime by becoming the senior-most civil services cadre officer of the Communications Ministry with billions and billions of Rupees to play around with. With a year or so to go till retirement, the boyish-looking thickset senior bureaucrat may have a lot to answer about but it would be well nigh impossible to accuse any bureaucrat of corruption (they would be really stupid to leave smoking guns around), but one can certainly take him to task about exercising lack of judgement or simply taking rank bad decisions that may (or have) cost the public exchequer a lot of money. While the politicians in power have every right to take decisions right or wrong, it is upto the career professionals of the civil service cadre to give the right analysis and recommendations thereof in writing to reduce the risk of malfeasance. Bureaucrats have an inborn habit of playing ducks and drakes with politician-incumbents of office, then quickly and smoothly changing loyalties to those who newly acquire power, casting the blame for all the ills of yesteryears on the previous regime.
Given the geographical layout of Pakistan, it is extremely necessary to have well-planned and properly constructed motorways criss-crossing the country for social, economic, political and strategic reasons. As a large country extending from mountainous north to the desert plains and the sea to the south, with rivers ranging down the length of the area, Pakistan has a vast population of over 100 million with diverse races that need to be assimilated closer together. Very much like the opening up of the American west by the railways for all the right reasons aforementioned, the national roads of Pakistan can open up economic opportunities among the neglected backward areas, bring the people closer together on the social plane and thus minimise political constraints while adding a strategic dimension. Modern communications may be the essence of unity among diverse populations, a well-organised and properly maintained highway system is the essence of communications in Third World countries like Pakistan.
The PM, having a business background, has an acute sense of economics about his politics. Along with reforms meant to achieve economic emancipation, he has correctly emphasized the need for arterial roads (communications) and power stations (energy). He has recently emphasised the need to simultaneously construct the Islamabad-Peshawar, Lahore-Rato Dero and Rato Dero-Karachi sections of the Trans-Pakistan Motorway. The recent appointment of Maj Gen Hidayatullah Khan Niazi, SJ, formerly the Administrator Defence Housing Authority (DHA), Karachi, as Chairman National Highway Authority (NHA) goes against the grain of Salman Taseer’s arguments about likely corruption in the Lahore-Islamabad motorway. If the PM had anything to hide then he would have ensured that someone who was amenable to “reason” and “logic” became the Chairman NHA. Nawaz Sharif’s action in appointing one of the most dedicated and honest of sons that this country is privileged to have gives the colour of sincerity to his intentions. Maj Gen Niazi has a bad habit of giving short shrift to corrupt subordinates, colleagues and superiors alike, very respectfully. Those in the NHA and the Ministry of Communications involved with malfeasance need to count their days. On the other hand, if the Project is sound and feasible, the new Chairman NHA has the reputation of having the dynamism to push it for all its worth till completion. Advice must have been proferred by the corrupt in all quarters to keep Niazi away so that they could ride out the gravy train on the “Highway to Heaven”, that the PM persisted with the choice is a credit to him and may yet be his salvation.
Those of us who know of Niazi’s integrity (and cherish the same) will wait for the last word on this subject from an expert who has made extremely difficult roads in more adverse circumstances. While expressing genuine reservations about the Project at face value, we will wait to see the conclusions that the new Chairman NHA reaches — or is allowed to! One can never under-estimate the powers of bureaucracy to push recalcitrants up the ladder out of the way where they could harm their long-term pension plans.
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