Unite Pakistan

Tougher days: ahead IMF loan THE government and the market are jubilant over the ‘successful conclusion’ of a new loan of $5.3bn from the IMF. And why not? The loan will ease pressure on diminishing foreign exchange stocks and relieve the government of worries of how to repay over the next 12 months what the country already owes to the Fund. But is it really a ‘step forward’ for the new government, which had promised voters so much? Although the announcement of the agreement on the loan hides more than it reveals, from whatever has so far been divulged it is clear the people should brace themselves for greater hardship. When Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said a “better tomorrow dawns only when the requisite pains are borne today”, he was signalling towards a tougher future for the people in whose name the loans are secured and who must repay these generosities with sacrifices. The help from the IMF is necessary not only to repay its existing debt but also to obtain bu...

State and security Sunday was again a day of carnage in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Around 50 people are dead in both incidents – bomb blasts. Quetta’s Hazara Town once again saw a large number of its own, 30 at last count, die along with scores injured – nearly all of them from the Hazara Shia community. A Frontier Corps’ convoy was attacked in Peshawar, where 18 were reported dead and more than 45 injured. Police and other security personnel and women and children died in both the attacks. Yet again the terrorists have struck at a minority community. And yet again the usual words come from those in high positions – leading to nothing of substance. There also seems to be a distinct lack of unequivocal condemnation from the political parties so recently elected on the back of promises to make a positive improvement in the lives of all, no matter their sectarian adherence. It is not just a particular sect that is under attack, it is the very fabric of the st...

Realisation dawns: PTI’s call for anti-terrorism plan AS the sprawling militancy and terrorism complex continues to rain down violence across Pakistan, a slight shift in political perceptions was witnessed on Sunday when PTI chief Imran Khan called for a joint civil-military strategy to fight terrorism. Until now, Mr Khan has talked more about drones and talks with the TTP than about the threat that militancy poses to the stability and security of Pakistan. But with the PTI’s government in KP rocked by a series of attacks in the province and violence in other parts of the country continuing unabated — in addition to Peshawar, Quetta and North Waziristan also suffered serious attacks on Sunday — there is perhaps the beginnings of a realisation within the PTI that the internal threat is real and serious and can only be countered by a firm resolve and coherent plan. So while Mr Khan did repeat on Sunday his standard trope of a ‘political settlement’, he appeared to ac...

Forays into friendship The British Prime Minister David Cameron is the first leader of a foreign government to visit Pakistan since the election that brought the PML-N and Nawaz Sharif’s government to power. His visit comes back-to-back with a trip to Afghanistan. High on the British agenda is the nature of the relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan, in particular the timbre of that relationship as the wind-down of foreign engagement in Afghanistan accelerates. In a more than usual anodyne press conference (at which neither leader took a single question) there were assurances about the enemies of Pakistan being the enemies of the UK, and the eternal friendship that exists between the two countries. Afghanistan got a mention too as Cameron spoke of the UK government’s support for President Karzai saying that any peace process will be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned, a mantra that is looking distinctly threadbare in the light of the debacle in diplomatic terms tha...

Need for restraint: Altaf Hussain`s speech IT was, in the end, the briefest of resignations, and very much in keeping with previous such episodes. But there was also something new about Altaf Hussain`s early morning speech and quick change of heart yesterday. For the first time, the MQM supremo acknowledged that the London police consider him a suspect in the Imran Farooq murder investigation. Mr Hussain also confirmed that British authorities recently raided his home in London and confiscated unspecified material. While railing against an international conspiracy against his person, Mr Hussain pledged to cooperate with British authorities and defend himself in a trial, if he is eventually charged in relation to Mr Farooq`s murder in September 2010. This is a good sign: the MQM boss, while denying any involvement, has indicated his willingness to respect the judicial process. The protracted telephonic back-and-forth between Mr Hussain and MQM activists and support...

Resolving the energy crisis When it comes to the energy sector reforms, the Nawaz Administration appears to be making relatively sensible choices. What makes the administration’s plan particularly impressive is that it seeks to balance what is politically possible with what is technically and financially necessary. So, for instance, the government is seeking to pay off the energy sector’s circular debt in one go in order to significantly reduce power cuts and win the public’s confidence before tackling the harder bits of the problem, like raising tariffs and forcing electricity thieves to pay their bills. We also admire the government’s commitment to reduce the weighted average cost of producing electricity for the national grid by moving towards cheaper fuel sources. We worry, however, that some of these moves are being made without a more thorough analysis of the future costs. Take, for instance, the government’s agreement with the independent power producers (...

  Bucks stopped For years – and not just for the life of the last government – there has been what can only be described as a culture of impunity when it came to state institutions paying their dues. Thus virtually every state owned entity, from PIA to the Pakistan Steel Mills to the Pakistan Railways to provincial governments and large corporations and the power generation and distribution sector as well, were defaulters on taxes and utility bills. This was equally reflected down to the micro level where individual but powerful households failed to pay their dues, but expected the services to continue despite never being paid for. Over time the nation became massively indebted to itself. This, eventually becomes completely unsustainable and the PML-N government inherited the governance of the country at a point at which its self-indebtedness became an existential threat – and it cannot evade the consequences. The government is twisting to and fro in the tran...

Humanity required: Stay on executions THIS is a country with serious law and order problems in several areas. While many remedies can be explored, the least acceptable is that implied in a complaint made by the Sindh High Court Bar Association in a petition against the targeted killings of lawyers and others in Karachi: that capital punishment is not being meted out to prisoners on death row, which, in the petitioner`s view, sends out the message that those responsible for heinous crimes go unpunished. This newspaper opposes capital punishment, not just for being a cruel and degrading punishment but also because it is only in a few cases that guilt is proved beyond a shadow of doubt. Most countries have removed this punishment from the law books. The strong pro-death penalty lobby in Pakistan, though, has meant that we have not done so, even though the country is amongst the states with the highest number of prisoners on death row. A middle ground of sorts wa...

Attack on judge’s convoy The law and order situation in the country’s financial hub continues to deteriorate with yet another bomb blast rocking Karachi on the morning of June 26. The convoy of the Sindh High Court Justice Baqar Maqbool was the target of the explosion that took place in the Burns Road area of the city. The bomb was planted on a motorbike that was parked near a mosque, which exploded as the convoy passed by, killing 12 people and injuring 14 others. Thankfully, Justice Maqbool, who is currently performing duties as the acting chief justice of the Sindh High Court, escaped only with injuries. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan have accepted responsibility for the attack, stating that Justice Maqbool was targeted for his “anti-Taliban and anti-mujahideen decisions”. Our law-enforcement agencies have clearly failed to fulfil their responsibility of ensuring peace in Karachi. The obvious weaknesses in the law-enforcement apparatus — which not only fails ...

Budget goes through It is nowhere close to being a perfect budget, but at least Finance Minister Ishaq Dar can take credit for sticking to his guns and pushing through even the most unpopular bits of the finance bill through the National Assembly. We do not agree with everything that is in the budget, but we do believe that it is important for a government to stick to its convictions, particularly about the tough choices that the country needs to make. With that said, we do have some reservations about the manner in which the increase in the general sales tax was imposed. It is entirely appropriate for the new finance minister to propose such a measure for debate in Parliament, and we are glad that the Supreme Court made him do so, rather than relying on a colonial-era law that allowed him to bypass the elected representatives of the people. However, imposing a tax retroactively from June 13 rather than July 1 is clearly unconstitutional. The government cannot ...

Fast track Promises made on the campaign trail have an ephemeral quality about them and often fade away from political memory once power is attained. Unusually, but providentially, the promises – some of them – that the PML-N made about getting on top of the problems in the power sector are being fulfilled with quite remarkable speed. The country has yet to see any relief from the chronic loadshedding that is making life a misery for millions, but it is at least possible to see the process by which power will once again come down the wires. The country was promised a retirement of circular debt within 60 days. But, a significant portion of it will have been retired by this time next week and the rest, hopefully, by the middle of July or thereabouts – well within the 60-day target. Circular debt is a man-made monster, and has its birth in poor management and weak political appointments to jobs that required detailed technical skill sets and top-flight management ab...

More steps needed: Tackling circular debt DAYS before the curtain is due to drop on one of the most profligate fiscal years of our history, the newly inducted government is ready to utilise a jaw-dropping Rs326bn to retire a large chunk of the circular debt. The amount will add another percentage and a half to the country’s fiscal deficit, expressed as a proportion of GDP. Once completed, this will be the largest single retirement of the circular debt ever attempted, with at least two other examples from the past of similar efforts to douse the problem in a single move. In both cases, the circular debt resurfaced within six months. Debate has continued over the structural reasons behind why the debt is proving so stubbornly resilient to eradicate. One view says the tariff itself is flawed, where the cost of generation averages out to Rs14 per unit (due mainly to our reliance on pricey oil imports) but the cost at which the unit is sold averages to Rs9. Another v...

  Reviving backdoor diplomacy The Pakistani government has decided to revive backdoor diplomacy channels with India. The earlier such attempts under the Musharraf regime were on the right track. The parleys between presidential aide Tariq Aziz and veteran Indian diplomat SK Lambah led to the evolution of the famed four-point formula as a workable option to resolve the Kashmir dispute. These efforts came to a standstill due to political instability in Pakistan and eventual exit of General (retd) Pervez Musharraf in 2008. Given the troubled history of Indo-Pakistan relations and the existence of slow-moving bureaucratic machinery, backdoor diplomacy is a feasible route to be adopted. If this back channel diplomacy does materialise, then the Sharif government’s move should be welcomed. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is committed to securing peace and boosting trade with India. However, he faces a formidable baggage of history and the national security paradigm th...

  Secrets and lies Transparency, honesty and accountability have never loomed large in the national political life of Pakistan. While the law of averages compels an understanding that there must be politicians as straight as the proverbial ruler, they remain a shy and rarely-seen species. The latest revelations in the Swiss letter saga do nothing to dispel the above perception. Conspiracy theories abound but rarely have substance. However, the revelation that a letter was written to the Swiss authorities, in secret and running counter to an earlier letter to them at the behest of the Supreme Court, really does have more than a whiff of conspiracy about it. Three leading figures of the last government – former law minister Farooq Naek, former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and the former federal law secretary Yasmin Abbasey – conspired together to deceive the judiciary and by extension the rest of the population. They were seeking to prevent the Swiss gove...

A shameful move: Swiss saga again EVEN the end isn’t the end, it appears. The long-running Swiss cases/letter saga that seemingly had finally come to a close last November has been revived in the most astonishing manner. Attorney General Muneer Malik informed the Supreme Court on Wednesday that the law ministry had written a second, secret letter to the Swiss in November; a second letter that directly contradicted the purpose of the first, court-mandated letter. What is most egregious here is the manner in which the law ministry appears to have been used by President Zardari as his personal law firm. As the primary target of the Swiss proceedings, Mr Zardari has the right to defend himself and put forward his own interpretation of the relevant laws. But if that is what the president wanted to achieve, he should have hired Swiss representatives in his personal capacity to lobby or appeal to the Swiss authorities regarding his point of view — and not used state reso...