Entering the 21st Century

Within striking distance of the 21st Century, one must take stock of the situation whether we as a nation are going to enter it better or worse than we are today or we were yesterday. Saleem Ahmed, an Engineering Consultant by profession and a close friend, raised this philosophical question at another friend’s 50th birthday as to whether our children would hope for the same quality of life in the next 50 years that we have been privileged to enjoy for the past half century? For the most part, the answer is both yes and no, with sometimes a mixture of both. While the high tech available in the modern world is very much present in Pakistan, it is mainly in consumer necessities meant for the rich, it is in basic necessities that we are rapidly losing ground.

The most obvious problem is over-population. Our population control programme has failed miserably particularly at the lower rung of the poverty strata where a mixture of ignorance and confused aspirations have multiplied the birthrate. Most of the money spent on the programme has gone in for salaries and vehicles for those employed in the programme, their success rate cannot even be equated to zero, it is in the negative range as the birthrate has increased. Religious teachers across the spectrum have compounded the situation by militating against the whole concept of the population capping exercise. The net result is that in the next three decades or so at the annual rate of 3% increase, we stand to double our present population and become the fourth largest populated country in the world. Barely self-sufficient in food but faced with increasing unemployment in an increasingly protectionist world, our socio-economic infrastructure cannot even hope to absorb even half that increase. The PM is bound for a UN sponsored Conference in Cairo on Population and Development. An eminent Pakistani, Dr Nafis Sadik, is a Director in the UN for Population Planning but that is about the limit of our motivation for population planning. It is hoped that GoP will register its seriousness with respect to population control by filling the composition of the PM’s delegation to Cairo with those who have been diligently working to control the problem as opposed to joy-riders on a junket.

The second major area of concern that we seem to be blissfully unconcerned about is the AIDS menace. While Pakistan is still behind India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh when measured on a pro-rata basis, it is an even bet that we will be faced with an unmanageable medical crisis in the near future since we exist in the same sub-continent and have a large expatriate population in various parts of the world. While graveyard humour would point out that this is nature’s way of adjusting the population increase, AIDS is no laughing matter in its sure-kill reputation, it’s deadly embrace has no compunctions about the social divide, AIDS strikes without warning and with extreme prejudice. Society must ensure the continued existence of human life by all the means at its disposal. Unless we can educate our public about the AIDS menace in a graphic fashion that instils the fear of God, many innocents will be struck down without warning.

The greatest problem that we are facing in the years upto 2000 is the rapid deterioration of the socio-economic infrastructure facilities of the country. Instead of improvement to cope with the increasing population, the existing facilities are on the verge of total collapse. Other than the obvious damage to roads, electricity, water and sewage lines due to devastating and unprecedented rains, the fact remains that these were already in most cases at an advanced stage of decay. Despite billions of rupees supposedly spent in development and modernization, corruption and inefficiency has been so rampant that most funds have been siphoned off and as such the projected work has literally gone down the drain. In one major case in Karachi, contractors making concrete pipes and laying water sewage lines have been cooperating with each other in laying the pipelines on paper only in connivance with KDA/KMC officials. Whatever work been done has been of sub-standard quality with the result that in our major cities, already over-crowded, we are now faced with the health problems of epidemic proportions because of the collapse of the socio-economic infrastructure. The profusion of garbage without adequate disposal, smoke emitting vehicles and environmentally unregulated industry, etc have made for a hazardous environment in all major urban cities. It is almost as if people have been strewing land mines with delayed fuses all over the urban landscape. Of particular concern is the damage to the sewage lines and the lack of garbage disposal since the overflowing filth is a fertile bed for the spreading of disease.

To cope with the first two problems, over-population and AIDS, it is necessary to invest in practical solutions in both the education and health sectors because such problems flourish mainly due to ignorance. To cope with the downstream effect, a comprehensive national health care programme is a dire necessity. The PM has shown great initiative in making some public sector enterprises realise their social responsibilities by setting up computer training institutes in underdeveloped areas. On the same analogy but on a much wider scale, encouragement (and incentives) must be given to the private sector to face their social responsibilities and to contribute towards socio-economic measures designed to alleviate the state of virtual stagnation in our health and education sectors. The Social Action Programme can only be made meaningful if it is decentralized down to the municipal level of Local Bodies. Unless the Local Bodies take on the responsibility which includes revenue collection and spending thereof, we are destined to remain in a Catch-22 situation. At the moment, the process of fielding complaints by citizen and rectification of grievances is almost non-existent. A combination of a propaganda campaign matched with sophisticated incentives for small families will ensure that the substantial increases in birthrate is capped. The masses must be made to become visibly scared about the prospects of over-population or we are headed towards doom because in the present state of development, we shall always play catch up with respect to our GNP as related to the population increase.

Decentralization will also be necessary for coping with the rapid breakdown of the services sector in the public domain. While central planning is necessary for purposes of laying out a comprehensive infrastructure, unless the problems are confronted at the micro-level i.e. by the communities themselves who have to quantify their necessities and ensure the quality of workmanship, they can never be overcome. Take for example, the breakdown in KESC where entire areas remained in the dark for long periods of time. The shutdown occurred due to a number of reasons viz (1) tripping (2) fires due to overheating and (3) breakdown of the feeder system within the city. Rectification services were only successful in those areas where the KESC staff was well-led and inherently dedicated. Previously one of the best run services organization in the country, KESC’s hand over to WAPDA in the early 80s destroyed both its corporate management expertise and its technical capabilities resulting in loss of manpower morale with its inherent downstream repercussions. By the time KESC regained its statutory status, the decay had set in, needing only a push for it to keel over, that came this year in the form of sporadic but devastating rain. While the posting of the unapproachable Retd IG Police Salman Khaliq as Chairman and MD KESC was one of Moeen Qureshi’s more forgettable aberrations, the fact is that KESC’s entire Transmission and Distribution system needed to be systematically overhauled and it was beyond Salman Khaliq’s limited technical or managerial expertise. A former Chairman, Tanzeem Naqvi, has been sent into the energy breach. To the government’s relief (and helped no end by nature), he has managed to bring a semblance of sanity to the whole process. However, he is a mere mortal and while GoP seems most willing at throwing money at the problems, what is expected of him is a superhuman effort, an impossible feat in an atmosphere that reeks of corruption and inefficiency. To that extent KESC is a symbolic representation of the disease of dishonesty that is afflicting the whole spectrum of our failing services system. Unless we can undertake sincere efforts in an honest manner that is not penny wise and pound foolish, our infrastructures across the whole spectrum are doomed to collapse. When the services sector in the public domain is for the most part managed by the scum and corrupt of this Earth, what can one really hope for but their damnation? We are just going to throw more money down the drain and in the process send our nation along that way also.

To enter the 21st century literally in one piece, we must come to terms with our political management problems, a situation that is compounded by an increasing crisis of leadership in every sphere of our national activity. To survive as a nation we have to produce such leaders who will rise above themselves and confront the problems head on, basing their initiatives on sound information and analysis, without any element of personal motivation or greed.

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