Editorial: The News - 23 June 2013

Black Fridays

Fridays are a day of prayer but they have also become days of indiscriminate slaughter and untold misery for many. This Friday was no exception. An MQM member of the Sindh Assembly Sajid Qureshi and his son were gunned down as they left a mosque on Friday afternoon. A pedestrian caught in the crossfire also died. The killings could not have been easier. The policeman deputed to guard the MPA had gone for lunch; the three killers simply waited outside the mosque, fled when they had done the deed and it was quickly claimed by the TTP. The MQM immediately announced three days of mourning and shutters quickly came down amidst aerial firing, and by dusk the city was mostly silent apart from other less high-profile murders. School examinations were immediately cancelled. Saturday saw Karachi virtually deserted with most public transport off the streets. As usual a team has been constituted by the police to investigate the killings but no arrests are expected imminently. Once again a mega-city is brought to a standstill by political violence and fear, and there seems to be little by way of robust response by any of the provincial agencies of law and order.

While the TTP was quick to own the slaying of the MPA, it was equally quick to disown the bombing of Madressah Arif Hussaini on the Grand Trunk Road close to Peshawar. Fourteen people died and 30 were injured, many of them badly. Three attackers fought with the police guarding the building, one got through and detonated his bomb-vest which weighed possibly 7kg and was loaded with ball-bearings. Two of the attackers escaped and there has been no credible claim of responsibility at the time of writing. According to some reports, two suspects were arrested on Saturday and have been shifted to an undisclosed location. The attack was most likely sectarian in nature with the madressah being one of the principle centres for the Shia community in the Peshawar area. The Karachi and Peshawar attacks happened almost simultaneously but there is no suggestion that they were in any way coordinated. That they happened at all demonstrates once again just how easy it is for terrorists to operate in the country. Slaughters such as these can happen any day and anywhere, no matter what the province. Public confidence in the ability of the state to provide security and protection at provincial or federal levels has all but vanished. Lawmakers inspire little confidence and some at least are clearly sympathetic to the extremist mindset, with a PTI MNA this week calling for the release of the killer of Governor Salmaan Taseer. He is unlikely to be alone in this desire. There are many who conclude that the state has abdicated responsibility for the safety of the common man – a conclusion in which they would be happy to be proved wrong.

Balochistan budget

The last of the provincial budgets, that of Balochistan, has now been announced; and the electoral and government forming process that began with the election on May 11 is largely over. There are portfolios to be allocated here and there, but the peaceful transition of one government to the next is mostly complete. All the provincial budgets presented so far have distinctive characteristics beyond the common theme of the federal divisible pool as a primary income. In a province that has the lowest aggregated literacy rate and one of the lowest female literacy rates in the world, education has been prioritised with a 42 percent increase in the education budget and commitment to setting up residential schools for young women in the hope of encouraging more of them to stay longer at their school desks. A higher education commission is to be established, the curriculum is to be purged of ‘hate material’, the Bolan Medical College is to be upgraded to university status and three more medical colleges will be set up. There is now a Rs5 billion endowment fund set up to grant scholarships to the most talented in this the poorest of provinces. For the first time there is to be a public accounts committee able to investigate allegations of corruption in the hope of achieving greater transparency and accountability.

The other big winner was development, with an increase of 29 percent over last year but with the focus firmly on completing work in progress rather than grand new schemes. Most of the Rs44 billion development budget will be spent on health and education – a positive and very visible investment in the human capital of the province that will quickly start to pay dividends. As elsewhere, provincial revenues are small at a mere Rs6.4 billion, almost matched by the Rs4 billion in foreign aid the province will receive. Of particular interest is the proposed establishment of the Balochistan Energy Company and Rs500 million to set up coal-fired power plants. For the first time there is to be investment in substantial alternative energy sources. Balochistan has an abundance of desert and clear skies – solar panels are to be installed to power up to 20,000 agricultural tube wells, with a long-term goal of running the entire provincial irrigation network on solar power. There is to be no more purchasing of luxury vehicles in the government sector and no more VIP trips abroad for medical treatment. Although these are largely cosmetic in that they only represented a fraction of the overall budget, the budget speech had a firm focus on austerity and a commitment to using local resources to their best advantage. Balochistan has more hills to climb than all the other provinces. The new budget is several steps along the road, but unless the appalling security situation in the province shows signs of mitigation then even the most carefully-crafted of budgets will be no more than sticking plaster.

Lost time

On a visit to Muzaffarabad, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has ordered work to start immediately on the Neelum-Jhelum hydel project. The PM pointed out that, while the dam on the two rivers had been approved many years ago, the delay in initiating it had added to the acute power problems facing the country. He has ordered that the reservoir, which is to be built at a cost of almost Rs275 billion, be made functional by 2014-15 since it is now urgently needed. The Neelum-Jhelum hydel project had been approved over 25 years ago but work on it had not begun at all. This is also the fate of other projects in the country, and partially explains why we are in such a grave mess in so many sectors. In many cases projects approved by one government are not carried forward by the next; in other instances simple inefficiency and bureaucratic red-tape hold them back.

On the next stage of his plan, the PM will be visiting China to discuss the technicalities of putting the project in place and beginning work on its construction. This is something we should all be glad to hear. As the incoming government has already said, the power crisis in the country – which has developed over at least a decade – cannot be immediately solved. However, the apparent evidence that concrete steps are being taken to do so will please many. There are other ‘abandoned projects’ that need to be looked at and whose feasibilities considered. It seems likely that the government may also give attention to getting these stalled initiatives started as a means to solving a crisis that has already crippled our country. We certainly need zeal and enthusiasm to get things moving.