Articles of the year 2015
Published on November 30th 2015
“The biggest obstacles to China’s plans lie in the dysfunction and incompetence of Pakistan’s governing structures.”
This sentence sums up the current flaws in the Pakistan Establishment, and the failure of the political system to correct these flaws. Without these corrections, corruption will continue to flourish, at the cost of development. In this fashion we are doomed to be stuck in this quagmire of crime, which promises success to the criminals. Showing how a criminal can rise to the top of the political,order– elected unopposed to the Presidency of Pakistan. Shrugging off many charges of corruption and malfeasance the most recent was Zardari’s acquittal in the Cotecna and SGS cases. For, lack of evidence. The TV stations ran clips alongside of the Pakistani High Commissioner to the UK, standing in an alley in Berne (Switzerland) supervising the loading of cartons of documents. These documents were sent off , ostensibly for safekeeping, some say.
More knowledgeable people say these documents will never be seen again – and they weren’t. These misplaced documents are the critical evidence in the Cotecna and SHS case. Showing the reach of criminal manipulation and hiding evidence and circumvention of the law to protect the criminals. For a person who had been convicted by by a Swiss Magistrate for money laundering, and then be elected unopposed to the Presidency of Pakistan, does show the sophistication of the PPP control over the legal system and the extent of the control of the system.
Without a functioning legal system, society as we know it will collapse. As any Social Scientist can explain Pakistani society has been in decline ever since the rise of the Bhutto political doctrine which encouraged criminal actions, and gave political immunity for crimes committed by their office holders. Of course the criminal actions were very rewarding, and has seen some very wealthy politicians emerge, with no visible or known sources of income.
In other countries and people make money, and then enter politics for the rush power gives. In Pakistan, people enter politics to make money. This has led to the most political billionaires in the world. Added to the protection, and the immunity from prosecution, politics has proved to be a very lucrative profession, and indeed two Prime Ministers have been pardoned for corruption, so it is with the least risk. Surely another first for Pakistan.
It is also strange that the first principle that is discarded is patriotism. After the advent of Bhuttoism, Pakistan lost its flavour, and provincialism, crept in till the ideology was almost completely forgotten, and came about only at election time. Till election time Pakistan was ignored. In the last five years there has been no development in Sindh, and a visit to the interior will bear witness to this. However maximum development funds were allocated, and spent on paper. Canals were dug and refilled, paid for, all on paper. Without any real work. This has cost the country dearly, making the PPP ministers richer.
The Pak China corridor is a brilliant and very important part of our economic development, but as stated in the first line. ‘ The biggest obstacles to China’s plans lie in the dysfunction and incompetence of Pakistan’s governing structures. ‘ As explained at the onset, Corruption will drag the country downward, and cause dysfunction. That is where Pakistan is at the moment, Sindh being the prime example. So for the China corridor to work, corruption has to be set aside, because development and corruption cannot go hand in hand. Corruption has to be curtailed or development will be denied to the people the biggest obstacles to China’s plans lie in the dysfunction and incompetence of Pakistan’s governing structures. Pakistan has grown progressively poorer in the last 15 years, more so than in our past 45 years. And will continue to retrogress unless corruption is tackled first.
The Chinese realise this well, as they have dwelt with this problem in their own country, many times, over thousands of years. They will ensure that their 45 billion dollars do not go down a Pakistani drain. So we can look forward to a successful China corridor, and the PakChina will flourish. The corrupt will be weeded out. The Chinese adopted the death penalty for corruption- which was very effective. This maybe a good insurance policy for their 45 billion dollar investment. Historically speaking, the political governments can be blamed for the collapse of all the institutions. Starting with the Steel Mill, the Shipping Corporation, all the public sector corporations and foremost amongst the failures is PIA of course. Once the shining beacon held as example for other airlines in the region. Now a sad reminder of how not to run an airline. Or What could have been. To see Emirates airlines that had been started by PIA, with PIA crew, and aircraft on loan. Today Emirates has a network spanning the globe on a daily basis, with one of the largest and youngest fleets in the world. Whereas we are reduced to aged planes, with water dripping from Air conditioning ducts, and toilets not functioning.
The foundation for the decline started with Nawaz Sharif granting landing rights to the Gulf carriers to fly into Lahore,Islamabad and Peshawar. These landing rights were gifted. to these airlines for a small backhander. But were the single biggest knife in PIA’s underbelly, and gave the Arabs an unfair advantage. Today Emirates has four flights daily to Lahore six to Karachi, and four to Peshawar. All these flights are carrying Pakistani ethnic traffic, which in any other country is protected like gold, and is never handed out to other carriers. An example is Turkish airlines which does not allow passengers to fly to any other destination in Turkey other than Istanbul. All other destinations are restricted to Turkish airlines. This folly alone has cost Pakistan billions of dollars in poached revenues.
For this we have Nawaz Sharif to thank. The losses to PIA, and to Pakistan cannot be quantified. But 1 billion dollars per year would be close. The moral of the story is that when powers are misused by persons at the helm of affairs, one should also hand out punishments for mistakes. This system of punishments should be implemented so that the Minister (s) should think many times before taking a decision that could affect Government. Every aspect of Government has been destroyed by the politicians. Bringing to the fore the real reason for entering politics– to make money, huge amounts. Hence the billionaires with no visible sources of income. Our own Prime Minister owns two apartments in Park Lane London. A very exclusive part of London which explains the stopover on every trip. Summing up, one could say that some politicians have made huge financial gains, from political positions, but at colossal cost to the state. PIA is just one sad story. The Railways are another example of a well run rail network that has gone to the dogs. Whereas its counterpart in India has grown in leaps, till it is a major part of the Indian communication system and earning huge revenues and is a major employer as well. All very valuable side effects of an efficient Railway. Whereas in Pakistan we have destroyed our passenger ability due to a shoddy service, and lost cargo to the burgeoning trucking network, that is the Pathan speciality.
The secret of our failure is the incompetence of the appointees and the political graft at every stage. In reality the cost of democracy has been too high a price for Pakistan.