Good, Bad and Ugly

Publisher and Managing Editor IKRAM SEHGAL wrote these articles for THE NATIONwhich we are re-producing with thanks.

The death of the PAF Chief along with his wife and colleagues in an air crash was a tragedy that Pakistan could have done without. Of humble background, Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Mir rose by dint of sheer merit to the very top of his profession. The two Air Vice Marshals who died with him, Abdur Razzaq and Salem A. Nawaz, were upwardly mobile professional air warriors, the PAF’s loss was accentuated by their demise. While speculation will remain about the possible reason for the Fokker accident till an official enquiry is complete, prima facie it seems to be pilot error, the wrong height at the wrong place at the wrong time i.e. the approach to Kohat airfield was wrong. The mass out-pouring of grief confirms that this nation still recognizes and respects excellence and integrity. Because of the constant modernization that every Air Force needs, the development of our air war machine has been hampered by sanctions and shortage of funds. Of the three Services PAF has seen very hard times certainly because of lack of resources but more due to diminishing sources for acquisition of new equipment. Every one of its Chiefs, except for the much unlamented Shamim, provided the driving leadership necessary for a Service like the PAF to keep its cutting edge. Mushaf Mir had the hardest job of all, husbanding our meagre (and constantly depleting) resources to keep the PAF in fighting trim. The PAF lost an outstanding leader, Pakistan lost one of its more illustrious sons. One can only hope and pray that Mushaf Mir’s successor will carry on his mission with the same spirit of dedication and integrity. One must also spare a prayer for Col (Retd) Sajid Ali, an old friend from Army Aviation, piloting the twin-engined Cessna that crashed in the Arabian Sea a few days ago close to Karachi off Cape Monze with foreign luminaries on board, including the Afghan Minister for Mines, Mr Mohammedi. While Pakistani navy divers have brought up part of the wreckage from the sea, three bodies still remain unaccounted for.
The good die before their time but those who draft economic policy in Pakistan never say die in blissfully ignoring the fact that our credit initiatives for consumer goods are seriously flawed, the stuff of criminal negligence. The selling of automobiles, electronic and electrical items on easy instalments allows the vast middle class easy access to consumer items and may also give a much needed shot-in-the-arm boost to the economy, the credit portfolio should only be confined to Pakistani manufactured goods and that too for only those who strictly follow the “deletion programme” that they have signed upto. In absolute contempt for such a restraint, many banks are openly advertising credit schemes supporting foreign manufactured goods, thus directly supporting the economies of Asian powerhouses such as Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, etc. This gigantic scam can only be stopped if we make it a criminal offence for banks to offer such schemes and the Bank President liable to be jailed for such offences. If a bureaucrat does not enforce the laws, he must be taken to task for allowing the State to be looted. The rumour about Pakistan taking TV sets as an item off from the Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA) negative list is scary. Since everyone and his uncle knows that most consumer items imported ostensibly for Afghanistan on the transit agreement actually never reaches Afghanistan but is consumed in Pakistan, the big financial killing because of this “innocent” diversion goes on. A large TV manufacturing base has grown in Pakistan with about 15,000-18,000 persons employed in its manufacturing sector, these will now become unemployed because of our “generosity” with the ATTA, causing further economic hardship. In our country those who draft policy usually seem keep the best economic interests of the smugglers at heart, providing for “service-industry” jobs for criminals down the line!
Under pressure of the motivated, the military regime withdrew an excellent proposal in the Legal Framework Order (LFO) about the election of the Senate on the basis of proportional representation i.e. the seats would be allocated on the percentage of votes cast for different parties in the Provincial Assembly elections. While most of those now elected would have made it to the Senate on this basis by being on the Party slate, the taint of votes being bought (the “Senate Bazaar”) would have been avoided. At least two PPP candidates in Sindh, Ms Maliha Malik and Nafees Siddiqui, lost out because a bloc of Sindh MPs who were to vote for them were bought out. In Nafees Siddiqui’s case four to six MPAs changed loyalties and voted for an independent businessman candidate with (according to Nafees) the blessing of ‘two’ important PPP leaders running the show as proxies of Ms Benazir. MMA Leader Maulana Umer said that according to the agreed plan, out of required 12 votes for each general seat, eight MMA MPAs and four PPP MPs Nisar Khuhro, Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Murad Ali Shah and Asif Shah were in Maulana Noorani’s panel for the general seat but the MMA chief secured only 10 votes. That would mean two PPPP MPs did not vote for Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani while eight Alliance legislators as per their mutual understanding had cast their votes for the reserved seats for two women and two technocrats candidates Rukhsana Zubairi, Farooq Naek, Maliha Malik and Nafees Siddiqui. Similarly one industrialist from Karachi made it to the Senate in Balochistan when holy ghosts voted for him. Something much worse happened to the PPP in NWFP. Because all the opposition parties in the House, the ANP, PML-Q, PPP and PPP (Sherpao), had an equal number of MPs the ANP, PML-Q and PPP (Sherpao) each got elected two Senators, but the PPP bagged only one seat. PPP candidate Sardar Ali accused nine PPP MPs of stabbing the party in the back for petty financial gains, he secured only one vote. The PPP parliamentary leader in the House had earlier told him that MPs would give him only five votes and, he should arrange for the required additional five more votes. Since only Syed Zahir Ali Shah voted for him, it was obvious that nine remaining MPs sold out to the purse of wealthy independents. The PPP says it will take a stern action against those of its MPs who “betrayed” the party nominee during the Senate elections. Against whom and by whom? It is incongruous that only 12 FATA MNAs (themselves elected in electoral farce) will elect 8 FATA Senators, if this is not an open invitation to corruption, what is? The allocation of seats should have had some relevance to the population on the one hand. Unless all elections are direct, they can (and are) manipulated by the liberal use of money by the Un-Godly. This demeans the sanctity and integrity of the Upper House. The Senate elections have been a blot on democratic norms, they have compromised the authority of the Senate. No country can be a Utopia, one has to learn to live with things that are bad but it is tragic that the good among us should perish early and leave us to the mercy of those elected by ugly means.