Climate change bites
The unprecedented increase in the number of patients suffering from dengue fever is not without reason
By Asma Rashid
The world is facing increased health hazards linked with climate change and global warming. Some potential human health hazards resulting directly or indirectly from climate change include heat-related illnesses; spread of infectious diseases; increase in the incidence of skin cancer; increase in respiratory disorders; and malnutrition.

destruction
Falling prey to deterrence trap
It is high time to do away with the myth that nuclear weapons provide safety
By Seemal Rehan
The year 2008 has ended on a rather sad note for the Indo-Pak peace process, especially in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. In this new scenario, threats and counter-threats have become the norm in the subcontinent these days. What has added to the gravity of the situation is that both Pakistan and India possess nuclear weapons, which that were once heralded as the vanguards of ‘peace’ and ‘security’ in the subcontinent. The year 1998 still haunts us with voices of ‘deterrence’ and ‘mutually-assured destruction’, and of how nuclear weapons were bound to make the subcontinent safe. The question, however, is: have nuclear weapons really made the subcontinent safe?

The urban reality
The physical infrastructure of cities in Pakistan is fast becoming incapable of meeting the growing demand for services
By Sidra Tufail
Urban centers all over the world serve to provide major social, economic and political opportunities for people, and well established and managed cities can act as a positive strength for a country’s economic and social development. They are seen as lands of opportunities and a prospective social and economic utopia with an endless array of lucrative possibilities. The rapid pace of urbanisation in Pakistan over the past few years has led to a significant boost in the urban population, while economic resources are becoming increasingly scarce.



 

analysis
Not knowing where to stand
The inhuman Israeli assault on innocent Palestinians is the most deadly in decades

By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar

It is old news that Israel does it wants with impunity. For more than 40 years it has made a mockery of the so-called ‘international law’ and extended the original Zionist project so that historic Palestine has now become, for all intents and purposes, a fast fading memory. It is also old news that the United States is Israel’s biggest supporter; that it too is patently unconcerned with the niceties of established legal frameworks and that it looks at Israel as its outpost in the volatile Arab world.

But despite these well and long established facts, what has transpired over the past 10 days or so is nothing short of mind-numbing. It is impossible to know exactly how many Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and maimed, because access to verifiable information is so limited. But there is no question that the inhuman Israeli assault is the most deadly in decades.

Predictably the world’s media has attempted to depict the conflict as a symmetrical one, as if Hamas – whatever its faults, and they are many – actually has the capacity to injure Israel in any meaningful way. What has been most unbelievable is the willingness of ‘enlightened’ elements within the Muslim world, including Pakistan, to parrot the corporate media and condemn Hamas for initiating rocket attacks against Israel.

I have warned on these pages about the dangers of the polarisation that is growing within Muslim societies – between the educated, secular elite and the majority of the population, which for lack of a better alternative tends to be drawn towards religio-political movements. The story of the educated elite mirrors the sad demise of secular nationalist and even radical political currents in the Muslim world, which in the current context is best exemplified by the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), and in particular the Al-Fatah faction headed by Mahmoud Abbas.

Over a period of two to three decades, organisations like the PLO, which once commanded popular support and respect for their relatively principled politics, have lost all moral legitimacy among their own people and in the worst of cases have become the stooges of the very imperialist forces that they once resisted openly. In their place, religio-political movements like Hamas in Palestine, and more generally militant groups that pledge commitment to ‘jihad’, have proliferated and taken over the mantle of anti-imperialist nationalism.

It need not be repeated here that the rise of religio-political movements over the pas two to three decades was sponsored in the initial instance by US imperialism. Israel too initially held a soft corner for militant Palestinian groups who were then on the fringes of the national liberation struggles, but were seen as potential problems for the PLO.

The religio-political movements having made inroads into Muslim societies, and ruling classes and imperialism having ensured the progressive currents in these societies were either co-opted or crushed, calls emerged from the increasingly alienated secular intelligentsia for a reversal of the retrogressive trend. But who were they asking to take action? The same ruling classes that had engineered the rise of the religious right? Or even worse, could they possibly be asking the Empire to intervene?

Therein lies the problem. Without any meaningful contact with the ordinary working people of Muslim societies, secular intellectuals have been deprived of a constituency to whom they can speak. This is partially their own fault, of course. As society has been radicalised along religious lines – often at a superficial level – the secular intelligentsia has adopted a reactionary posture, exhibiting an increasing intolerance towards religious and sometimes even non-religious cultural symbols. The contempt they harbour speaks of an inability to recognise the deeper sociological explanations for the right’s ability to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of working people.

And so it is that the secular intelligentsia, alienated both physically and culturally from the people, unwittingly comes to look at the Empire as the lesser of two evils. Washington and London’s rhetoric is taken at face value. The need to at least contain, and preferably eliminate, Hamas, the Taliban, Hezbollah or any other Islamist group (the differences between them of course are substantial) tragically brings the secular intellectual into the same corner as the Empire.

This is the sad reality of what has transpired in the Muslim world in recent years. The Palestinian tragedy, at least in the current conjuncture, is more about the polarisation within Palestinian society than ever before. The same is true for Pakistani society, or Algerian society, or Egyptian society. The clarity with which the secular, leftist intelligentsia should have responded to the so-called ‘war on terror’, thereby offering the enraged people of the Muslim world an alternative anti-imperialist platform, has been conspicuous by its absence.

It is important, of course, not to attribute too much blame to subjective causes. The objective conditions remain stifling for secular, progressive forces. The parties that once unified popular forces have either disappeared or are ineffectual. Cultural spaces in which the secular intelligentsia and artists thrived have been taken over. The international aid industry has introduced non-political ‘civil society’ to the detriment of secular political forces. The media is more often than not a mouthpiece of the powers-that-be.

Nonetheless, it is in the face of such challenges that regeneration must take place. In occupied Palestine, one does not have the luxury to pontificate on the matter. Israel’s colonial and racist policy of genocide must be opposed, and criticising Hamas will only make that organisation even more popular. In other parts of the Muslim world, which have not yet been ravaged by imperialist war, the secular intelligentsia must take a firm stand against the complicity of its ruling class, and start the long and hard work of fomenting a meaningful and radical alternative to the religious right.

In Pakistan, this task is as urgent as anywhere else. The Pakistani establishment remains hand-in-glove with the Empire, even though all sorts of contradictions have emerged because of the so-called ‘war on terror’. This is the principal crisis that we face and no amount of ranting and raving against Talibanisation will change this reality. In fact, the best way to counter Talibanisation is to prove to working people in deeds, rather than words, that the secular left offers the real resistance to Empire and its stooges.

Newswatch
Questions about an illegal and unnecessary war
By Kaleem Omar

Bob Woodward – of Watergate fame – got a couple of best selling books out of George W Bush’s unprovoked and utterly illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, with Bush and his administration’s officials cooperating fully in giving Woodward access to their papers and reminiscences in order to give a boost to Bush’s description of himself as a war time president. But what a price to pay for the world’s most expensive bit of spin doctoring: more than a million Iraqis dead (most of them innocent civilians) and war costs to US taxpayers approaching $1 trillion to date, with no end in sight to either the killing or the spending. Small wonder, then, that an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at Bush at a recent news conference in Baghdad.

Most people around the world knew from the outset that the US invasion of Iraq violated every canon of international law and was in flagrant defiance of world public opinion. But it took a while before the scales began to fall from American eyes. One of the first mainstream American journalists who was opposed to the war and began asking questions about it was James A Hughes, editor of the Charleston Gazette. His perspective, naturally, was an American one, but what he had to say had wider relevance.

Writing in his paper’s edition of March 29, 2003 (only nine days after the invasion began), Haught said: “Why did President Bush order 250,000 young Americans into the deadly peril of war, when it really wasn’t necessary? Why did he unleash hundreds of high-tech missiles (costing taxpayers $500,000 each) on Baghdad (population 5 million, half of them children), when it really wasn’t necessary?” Good questions. By opting for war, Bush hasn’t only put young American soldiers at risk; he has put millions of Iraqis at risk.

According to UN figures, 700,000 Iraqi children have died of malnutrition and disease due to food and medicine shortages caused by 12 years (1990-2002) of crippling US-led sanctions. Now, Bush had put more children and others at risk. Over the next six years (2003-2008), that translated into an additional one million Iraqi dead, including thousands of women and children. Is this the horrific legacy by which Bush wishes to be remembered, to say nothing of the tens of thousands of Afghanis killed by US troops during the same period?

Haught wrote: “If Iraq has secret stashes of horror weapons, as Bush contends, UN inspectors could have spent years combing the nation for them. If any forbidden materials were found, world tribunals could have prosecuted dictator Saddam Hussein.” That contention, of course, turned out to be utterly false. The so-called ‘weapons of mass destruction’ became ‘weapons of mass disappearance’.

In fact, the Bush administration knew full well, even before the invasion began, that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Any such weapons that it may have once had (developed, it should be remembered, with the help of Western companies) were mostly destroyed by UN weapons inspectors in the 1990s. Whatever was left was mostly destroyed in the latest round of inspections (December 2002 to March 2003), as UN Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix told the Security Council on March 7, 2003.

The UN inspectors left Iraq in December 1998, not because Saddam Hussein kicked them out but because they were ordered out by the UN Secretary General because of concerns for their safety due to increased American and British bombing in the country’s southern ‘no-fly’ zone. Yet Bush administration spin doctors continued to claim for years that the inspectors were kicked out.

Blix told the UN Security Council in early March, 2003, that his inspectors could finish the job in another couple of months. But Bush wouldn’t let inspections continue. Instead, he brushed aside all discussion and opted for war. Bush spent most of the winter saying he wanted to avoid war – that it would be a “last resort”. He talked of disarmament conditions that Iraq might meet. In fact, this was only a ruse to buy time until sufficient US military forces could be moved into the Gulf region to make an invasion of Iraq possible.

“F—- Saddam. We’re taking him out.” Those were the words of President George W Bush, who had poked his head into the office of then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, said an article in the Time magazine. “It was March 2002,” said Time, “and Rice was meeting with three US senators, discussing how to deal with Iraq through the United Nations, or perhaps in a coalition with America’s Middle East allies.

“Bush wasn’t interested. He waved his hand dismissively, recalls a participant, and neatly summed up his Iraq policy in that short phrase. The senators laughed uncomfortably; Rice flashed a knowing smile. The president left the room. A year later, Bush’s outburst has been translated into action, as cruise missiles and smart bombs slammed into Baghdad.”

Said the Charleston Gazette’s Haught in the paper’s issue of March 29, 2003: “Bush’s crude chest-thumping a year ago sounds more like beer-tavern swagger than intelligent statecraft. It reeks of immaturity and the tough-guy mentality. It certainly doesn’t display intellect.”

Professor Katherine van Wormer of the University of Northern Iowa, an expert in addiction, said Bush had many qualities of a “dry drunk”, a former alcoholic who stopped drinking but still thinks obsessively. She wrote: “Bush’s rigid, judgmental outlook comes across in virtually all his speeches. To fight evil, Bush is ready to take on the world in almost a biblical sense.”

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post said: “The true explanation is deep in Bush’s psyche, which draws sharp lines between good and evil, black and white. Bush’s religious devotion encourages such distinctions. Bush implies but does not directly assert that he is doing God’s work.” Writing in the March 2003 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, American historian Richard Brookhiser argued: “Bush’s faith means that he does not tolerate, or even recognize ambiguity.” He contended that Bush was limited by “strictly defined mental horizons.”

Richard Blow, former executive editor of George magazine, said: “Certainly the president is no intellectual. He received mediocre grades at college; he’s not a big reader. He lacks curiosity and he resists discussion about abstract subjects. He couldn’t last 10 minutes with Bill Clinton in a debate about public policy. And yet, this is not to say that Bush is dumb. He makes decisions and sticks to them because he isn’t interested in gray areas. Possibly Bush finds complexity intimidating; sometimes his sarcastic talk seems to mask a kind of mental insecurity. It is this thought process that has led Bush to war.”

To make matters worse, Bush is a compulsive smirker. In a biting piece, entitled Who Dares Critique the Smirking Commander?, posted on the CounterPunch website back in March 2003, Linda Heard wrote: “America’s great commander George W Bush has surely to be admired for his amazing sangfroid. If he had any worries about the impending ‘Shock and Awe’ campaign, he didn’t show them as he played with his pooch on the White House lawn on the day the war kicked off. After an intimate dinner with the missus, the wondrous leader took time off to give the order to attack Baghdad before delivering his mushy message to the nation.”

But unfortunately for Bush, “Aunty Beeb, also known as the BBC, erroneously broadcast Dubya preparing for his Churchillian moment in history,” as Heard wrote, “There he was practicing his speech totally unaware that the cameras were rolling. As his mouth moved soundlessly evoking a guppy in an aquarium a middle-aged ma’am primped his locks, spraying every offending hair into place.

“Worse, the small man deliberately contorted his features in an effort to convey passivity, emotion and greatness as though he were looking into a mirror, which he probably was. The result was an orchestrated pre-written blurb absent of sincerity or sympathy.” Lee Strasburg, the famed drama coach who founded New York’s method school of acting, must have been turning over in his grave.

firstperson
Time for truth
Our internal security is threatened by the elements that we ourselves had created

By Raza Khan

Dr Humayun Khan is indubitably one of best diplomats produced by Pakistan. He reached the highest position in Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs: foreign secretary. Hailing from Amazo Ghari, Mardan, he did his master’s from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom and PhD from University of Southern California in the United States.

Dr Humayun Khan started his career as a civil servant and worked as political agent of Waziristan and Malakand, deputy commissioner of Bannu and Swat, and assistant commissioner of Tank and Nowshera. In 1973, when he was home secretary of the NWFP, Dr Humayun Khan left civil service and joined the Foreign Service of Pakistan. During his ensuing 18-year stint, he worked as ambassador of Pakistan to India, Bangladesh and the UK. He became Pakistan’s foreign secretary in 1988.

Dr Humayun Khan also worked as head of the Commonwealth Foundation, London. The importance of his diplomatic assignments can be judged from the fact that he was given the most difficult tasks, particularly regarding relations between Pakistan and India. He has co-authored a book on Indo-Pakistan relations, titled Diplomatic Divide. In 2007, he joined the Awami National Party (ANP). The News on Sunday had a detailed sitting with him recently during which many important aspects of Pakistan’s foreign policy were discussed. Excerpts follow.

The News on Sunday: During a presentation at the Carnegie Endowment in 2001, you said the intelligence agencies determined Pakistan’s Afghan policy. Would you like to elaborate?

Humayun Khan: I was probably referring to the 1980s when Pakistan was home to Afghan mujahideen, and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was the conduit for funds, arms and other support from the West to them. At that time, it was right to say that the intelligence agencies determine Pakistan’s Afghan policy. When Gen Zia-ul-Haq was killed and Benazir Bhutto took over as the prime minister, the control of military eased but only briefly; after some time, the ISI, under then-COAS Gen (r) Mirza Aslam Beg, again took control of the country’s Afghan policy. When I say control, I mean that they often acted independently of what the Foreign Office was doing at the diplomatic level.

TNS: Do you agree that Pakistan’s Afghan policy after Zia has been a complete failure?

HK: I would say ‘yes’. I advised the moment the Soviets withdrew that Pakistan should stop interfering in Afghan affairs, but the army thought Pakistan could probably put a government in place in Kabul that would be more or less under its control.

TNS: From where the much talked about Pakistani policy of locating ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan emerged?

HK: This policy can be attributed to military leaders like Gen (r) Mirza Aslam Beg and former ISI Director General Gen (r) Hameed Gul. It means that since our main cities are located very close to the Indian border, in case of an Indian advance, Pakistani forces would not have sufficient ‘strategic depth’ to be able to fall back and continue fighting. Hence, the ridiculous idea that Afghanistan would provide ‘strategic depth’ to Pakistan gained currency. I have also heard military leaders ridiculing the idea. One of them said recently that it is stupid to talk of ‘strategic depth’ at the back; what you need is ‘strategic depth’ at the front, so that you have space within your territory to counter the enemy. In short, the policy now stands fully discredited.

TNS: Is it true that Benazir Bhutto, during her first stint as prime minister (1988-90), was completely powerless as far as foreign policy was concerned?

HK: No, I do not think that this is true. In her first few months as prime minister, then-President Ghulam Ishaq Khan tended to support the ISI and she went along. However, after removal of Gen (r) Hameed Gul as director general of the ISI, Benazir Bhutto got more control over the country’s foreign policy. As far as the Afghan policy is concerned, Ghulam Ishaq Khan was more powerful than Benazir Bhutto, but I would not say that she was totally powerless.

TNS: In your book Diplomatic Divide, you argue that the widely-held perception in Pakistan that India wants to harm Pakistan is incorrect? Would you please elaborate?

HK: I was Pakistan’s ambassador to India from 1984 to 1988. I saw the rule of both Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi. I got the impression that Rajiv Gandhi, being a young man, was not obsessed with rivalry with Pakistan. Under him, the thinking in India began to change. The real change, however, came after 1993 when India embarked on a very successful economic programme designed by then-Finance Minister and current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. As a result, India flourished as an economy with growth rates of 8-9 percent on the trot. This broadened the horizon of Indians, because they started thinking themselves in terms of being more a global power rather than a regional bully. Thinking developed in India that if the country was to be accepted by the world as a major power, then it must win the trust of its neighbours first; the country should not be preoccupied with petty disputes with its neighbours. As far as I can see, this was a genuine belief of the Indian intelligentsia. Rajiv Gandhi himself told me that India had a big stake in Pakistan’s stability. However, objective factors did not substantiate this claim. It is especially difficult for me to say that I hold the same views following what happened in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. Naturally, my faith has been shaken, but I have not lost it altogether. I think that currently Indians are acting in anger. If they observe restraint and apply reason, I hope that they would realise that there is no question of official Pakistani involvement in what happed in Mumbai. Similarly, there is no question of public support in Pakistan for what happened in Mumbai. This was an act of enemies of Pakistan and the country is suffering more at their hands than India. Our approach should be one of cooperation to tackle this enemy jointly. It would be unwise of India to cause suffering to the people of Pakistan because of the actions of the country’s enemies.

TNS: Pakistan is often accused of using terrorism as a tool for pursuing its foreign policy vis-à-vis India and Afghanistan. What is your take on this?

HK: I would not like to use the word ‘terrorism’; I think it is more appropriate to call it ‘war by proxies’: you do not get directly involved in conflict, but you encourage and train groups to do so. For example, Pakistan was doing this in Indian-Held Kashmir; though I believe the country’s political and military leadership has now realised that this policy is unworkable. The major problem with this policy is that the ISI used the ‘jihadis’ for a specific purpose – against the Soviets in the 1980s and in Kashmir in the 1990s – but after that these trained people were left with nothing to do. Therefore, they have turned their guns towards Pakistanis and started posing a threat to the society. Our internal security is threatened by the elements that we ourselves had created.

TNS: Is it true that some people within the Pakistani establishment still consider the ‘jihadis’ as ‘strategic assets’?

HK: Yes, they do, though it is a big mistake. The ‘jihadis’ help you in the time of need, but on their own terms and conditions. In other words, you must be prepared for Pakistan’s Talibanisation if you want to get their help. The ‘jihadis’ would never allow democracy to flourish in Pakistan because they have their own agendas, so making them your ‘strategic assets’ is nothing but asking for trouble.

TNS: Could you tell us about the contribution of Pakistan’s Foreign Office in the country’s foreign policy formulation?

HK: Normally the Foreign Office is responsible for formulating foreign policy and recommending it to the government, but it the case of Afghanistan the power rests since long with the ISI. As a result, the role of the Foreign Office has been seriously compromised. Moreover, in our relations with the United States, the armed forces have a separate communication channel with the Pentagon besides the one the Foreign Office has with the US State Department.

TNS: To what extent is the Indian foreign policy influenced by the military or military-industrial complex?

HK: There is no doubt that the military is subservient to the political government in India. However, this does not mean that the military does not have an important voice in policy matters.

TNS: If the Pakistani policy vis-à-vis Afghanistan is handed to Pukhtoons like you, do not you think that the matters could be sorted out between the two neighbours?

HK: When the Awami National Party (ANP) won the 2008 elections in the NWFP, it was hoped that the federal government would consult the party while dealing with Afghanistan. I still believe that this is possible. The ANP is ready to contribute to this process on the behalf of Pakistan.

TNS: To what extent have successive foreign policies of Pakistan taken into account the interests of Sindhis, Pukhtoons and Balochs?

HK: This is more of a domestic problem than a foreign policy issue. However, the fact is that the federal government has never tried to address the issue of equity among the provinces. This has led to a lot of disaffection in the smaller provinces.

TNS: Can there be an end to terrorism in the region or has it become our fate?

HK: This a very complex issue. At a moment, we have a raging insurrection and this fire that must be put out immediately. How much this can be done through state force and how much through negotiations is for the government to decide and act accordingly. There should be a strategy with short-, medium- and long-term measures to tackle the menace of terrorism. Until we can restore peace, a short-term objective, there can be no development, which is a medium- to long-term goal.

(The author is a journalist and research scholar.

Email: razapkhan@yahoo.com)

A tough call
The FBR is resorting to highhandedness in tax collection under the IMF’s umbrella

By Huzaima Bukhari and Dr Ikramul Haq

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is under tremendous pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to generate ‘extra revenue’ of Rs110 billion during the current fiscal year (FY2009). Therefore, the original budget fixed at Rs1.250 trillion has been increased to Rs1.36 trillion. However, from July to December 2008, the FBR could collect only Rs530 billion (estimates issued on January 1, 2009). The collection of Rs830 billion in the remaining six months of FY09, especially when the economy is grappling with the worst crisis of its kind and business houses are facing acute liquidity crunch, is a tough call.

Under tremendous pressure, the FBR’s field officers are following the disgusting practice of creating huge fictitious demands and resorting to collection through coercive measures. The IMF, a neo-East India Company in our peculiar context, is least bothered about highhandedness of the FBR in collection of taxes, even in cases where it is not due. According to media reports, to meet the IMF’s demand, the FBR is exploring the “possibility to enhance rate of withholding tax on cash withdrawal, imports and exports.”

One of the possibilities is to raise tax on cash withdrawals from banks from 0.3 percent to 0.6 percent; on imports, from 2 percent to 5-6 percent; and on exports, from 1 percent to 2 percent. The trade and professional bodies have strongly criticised these proposed measures, expressing their indignation for any new or enhanced tax, because the economy is already in deep recession. They are surprised that the government, instead of giving ‘bail-outs’ and reducing interest rates, as is being done in other countries, is resorting to further taxation that may harm the trade, industry and business compatibilities of export units.

Undoubtedly, the unrealistic and overambitious revenue target of Rs1.36 trillion for FY09 is ill conceived, especially when key economic indicators are showing negative trends. This target is also beyond the existing economic potential considering the country’s limited tax base. Therefore, if achieved through highhandedness, it will cause irreparable damage to the already ailing economy. Under these circumstances, the extra burden of taxes, proposed by the IMF and pursued religiously by the FBR, will be a final nail in the coffin.

The FBR has mercilessly wasted borrowed funds of $100 million from the World Bank for implementation of the Tax Administration Reform Project (TARP), which will end in December 2009. After five years of TARP, Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio is just 9.6 percent. In FY 208, the FBR surpassed the revised target of Rs990 billion by over Rs54 billion, which was an all-time record, yet the revenue deficit reached Rs400 billion. In FY 07, the total collection was Rs840 billion and the revenue deficit was only Rs202 billion. The FBR achieved record tax collection in FY08 largely due to excessive import-based indirect taxes accounting for 48 percent of total revenues. Since the tax base remains punctured and narrow, the tax-to-GDP ratio has showed negative growth in real terms, if inflationary factor is taken into account.

Independent analysts have been expressing serious concerns about the narrow tax base, low tax-to-GDP ratio and shifting of tax burden on the poor. There is a consensus between official and independent quarters that Pakistan needs to strive very hard at coming on par with many developing countries in achieving a desirable tax-to-GDP ratio of over 15 percent. Some radical changes – such as broadening of the tax base, reduction of exorbitant sales tax and corporate rates, and simpler and fairer tax codes – are required for this purpose.

Pakistan needs to re-prioritise its tax policy to improve the tax-to-GDP ratio, and attain better compliance and collection, coupled with rapid industrial and business growth. The sole stress on revenues through harsh and illogical measures as the FBR is thinking at present will not serve any purpose. The IMF wants a cap of 5 percent on the budget deficit, which can be achieved only by drastic cuts in non-productive expenses, coupled with rapid industrial growth that will ultimately improve the tax-to-GDP ratio. As a first step, both rulers and bureaucrats, who are plundering and wasting national resources ruthlessly, should start living at the level of the common people.

The mighty segment of society does not pay personal income tax and then, through the FBR, periodically avails loathsome amnesty schemes to decriminalise its untaxed wealth and income at just 2 percent rate, which amounts to sneering at honest taxpayers. It is high time that all public office holders make their tax returns public. There should be a public campaign that the absentee landlords, most of whom are members of parliament, should reveal their tax declarations. All the judges and high-ranking public servants, including serving and retired generals, should also be required under the law to make public their assets and tax declarations on annual basis. Similarly, all businesspeople should be divested of exemptions enjoyed under various tax codes.

The tendency to squeeze more and more from the existing taxpayers and giving a free hand to non-filers has eroded the tax base to the extent where voluntary compliance and tax enforcement have lost their relevance. The present tax system imposes greater and undue incidence on the poor and middle-class people (for example, 16 percent general sales tax takes larger portion of low-income groups compared with high-income groups). The rich and mighty agriculturists are enjoying complete personal tax exemption. Adding insult to injury, they get unprecedented privileges at the cost of taxpayers’ money.

Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio can rise to 20 percent in one year if we tax absentee property owners and speculative dealings in real estate (this will also help in promoting the construction industry because prices of land will come down), and introduce asset-seizure legislation for untaxed assets and incomes. It is high time that the FBR be insulated from all kinds of political, financial and administrative pressures. At the same time, it should not assume the role of legislature and policymaker, which under the Constitution is the sole prerogative of the people of Pakistan through their elected representatives.

The appointments of chairperson and members of the FBR should be made by a select committee of the parliament and not at the wishes and dictates of the ruling political party. Through public debates and democratic processes, the parliament should devise a rationale and workable tax policy after taking inputs from all the stakeholders and experts in the field. This alone can help in broadening the tax base and improving the tax-to-GDP ratio in the country; extorting money through traumatising taxpayers by creating demands that will buckle in appeals will not prove beneficial in the long-run.

(The writers, tax advisers, are visiting professors at Lahore University of Management Sciences.)

Going by international standards, Pakistan does not have the required number of doctors to cater to the needs of its fast-growing population. The situation is not helped much by the fact that successive governments have failed to devise a clear policy for regulating the mushroom growth of private medical colleges in the country.

One the one hand, vague policies of the federal and provincial governments regarding private medical education have allowed investors to come into the business without following any rules. While, on the other hand, instead of regulating the sector, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) is considering imposition of a ban on the opening of new private medical and dental colleges in the country for a period of three years.

The PMDC started considering this proposal, and also endorsed it at a recent meeting, considering the ‘shortage’ of teaching staff, though medical colleges in the public sector also suffer from the same problem. According to an official, the PDMC thinks that it will be unwise to allow the opening of new medical and dental colleges without taking into account the ‘shortage’ of teaching staff; new colleges will have no choice but to depend on the exiting faculty.

During the PMDC meeting, which endorsed the imposition of a ban on the opening of new private medical and dental colleges in the country for a period of three years, some participants supported the decision while others described it as a move to ‘please’ a certain group from one province that did not want the opening of new medical colleges, allegedly to avoid competition for its own institution.

It is important to mention here that the PMDC also has no authority to monitor or regulate medical or dental colleges, either in the public or private sector. Though it was granted these powers through an ordinance in 1999, that ordinance never became a law. After that no power has been granted to the PMDC to perform this duty. However, PMDC officials have assumed this role on their own, and claim that they have the power to monitor and regulate the medical education sector.

Although the PDMC was originally formed to register medical practitioners, with the passage of time everyone has started believing that it has the power to monitor and regulate medical and dental colleges too. This self-assumed role has made the PMDC a sort of a mafia and many of its officials have been accused of corruption in the name of recognising medical and dental colleges.

At present, the number of private and public sector medical and dental colleges in the country is exactly the same: 32 each. According to details available on the PMDC’s website, Punjab has 14 public sector and private medical and dental colleges each; Sindh has 12 private medical and dental colleges against 10 public sector medical and dental colleges; the NWFP has six public sector and private medical and dental colleges each; and Balochistan has two public sector medical colleges and no private medical education facility.

According to World Health Organisation (WHO) standards, a developing country needs at least one doctor per 1,000 people. Though according to the PMDC the ratio between health facilities and the population has improved over the past few years in Pakistan, the country till lags far behind the WHO standards. According to a 2007 report of the PMDC, there is one doctor per 1,310 people in Pakistan.

Importantly, the ratio of dentists per person in Pakistan is even more disappointing; there is one dentist per 25,107 people. In Pakistan, MBBS and BDS degree-holders have to get themselves registered with the PMDC to start practice, according to the PMDC Ordinance 1969. According to an official report, the PMDC registered 4,766 MBBS doctors (2,608 women and 2,158 men) and 759 dentists (515 women and 244 men) in 2007.

With this, the total number of MBBS doctors in the country has increased to 127,893 in 2007 from 123,126 in 2006, and that of BDS doctors to 8,197 from 7,438 during the same period. Of these doctors, many leave for abroad to pursue higher studies or better careers, while a few hundreds others do not practice at all for various reasons. According to the PMDC’s figures, private and public sector medical and dental colleges in the country offer admission to more than 8,000 students every year.

According to the PMDC’s rules, a private medical college cannot admit more than 100 students in a year in one session of the Bachelors of Medicine and Bachelors of Surgery (MBBS) and Bachelors of Dental Surgery (BDS) degrees. While, in public sector medical and dental colleges, the number of medical colleges is even more than 250 in some cases.

According to a report prepared by AG Khan, former director general (Health) and also a former president of the PMDC, in Pakistan every year about 30,000 students pass the FSc premedical examination in First Division, securing more than 60 percent marks, and most of them apply to get admission in medical and dental colleges.

“About 4,000 get admission in public sector medical colleges and the remaining about 26,000 do not succeed, though they are very keen to join this profession and serve the ailing humanity. Out of these unsuccessful candidates every year about 800, who can afford, go abroad to Russia and other former Soviet republics, China, the Philippines and Caribbean states for medical education and over Rs4 billion of the country’s precious foreign exchange is spent on these students,” the AG Khan report states. The report also suggests that the opening of standard medical colleges in Pakistan in the private sector will immensely benefit these students.

Dr Mahboobul Haq, former federal finance minister, said in his 1984 budget speech that the public sector could not afford to establish more medical and dental colleges. Therefore, he called for assigning this role to the private sector. Private medical and dental colleges try to meet the shortage of seats in their public sector counterparts. The Aga Khan Medical College was the first private sector medical institution in the country. However, many others followed suit in no time. However, the federal government has not yet formulated a policy regarding the establishment of private medical and dental colleges. This has not been done at the provincial level also.

The previous federal government announced that it would introduce a new law for the regulation of private medical and dental colleges, but nothing concrete has so far been done in this regard. The policy was announced by then-Health Minister Muhammad Naseer Khan while speaking at a conference in Murree in 2004. The legislation was supposed to regulate private medical and dental colleges in the country, besides strict monitoring of illegal and substandard medical institutions.

In Punjab, the Health Department has not yet finalised the rules governing the establishment of private medical and dental colleges, even though it was issued clear directions to do so by then-Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif in 1999. On the opening of the first private medical college in Lahore and on its getting affiliated with University of the Punjab, the secretary to the then-chief minister issued a directive to the Health Department in August 1999. The directive required of the Health Department to issue a no objection certificate (NOC), and to finalise a policy for the establishment of new medical and dental colleges in the private sector by August 20, 1999.

The NOC was issued on August 21, 1999, under “future laws for the establishment and regulation of private medical institutions in the province / country.” However, a Punjab Health Department official tells The News on Sunday that no policy for the establishment of new medical and dental colleges in the private sector has been finaslised yet.

In 2002, the Lahore High Court directed the Punjab government to formulate a clear policy for registering private medical and medical colleges. On a petition seeking permission to start a Bachelors of Computer Sciences course at Government Degree Asghar Mall College, Rawalpindi, Justice Abdul Shakoor Paracha observed that the government had not formulated any policy regarding imparting education through private institutions.

“This all is propaganda against the PMDC. The council has all powers to register, regulate and monitor the medical education in the country,” PMDC President Prof Dr Sibtul Hasnain tells TNS. The PMDC is responsible for faculty employment insurance and standardised medical education, he adds. Hasnain says that the PMDC was supposed to provide guidelines to medical and dental colleges, and the implementation of the guidelines is up to them and the universities with which they are attached.

He informs that the proposal of imposing a ban on the opening of new private medical and dental colleges was an in-house one. “The proposal is still under discussion and the PMDC will recommend it to the federal government for endorsement and implementation after the final. Actually, there is an acute shortage of basic medical sciences faculty members in the country.” he says.

Federal Health Secretary Suleman Ghani, talking to TNS, said that though the medical education and health were provincial subjects, the federal government would provide them guidelines and policy. He added that the Health Ministry had not yet received any recommendation from the PMDC to impose a ban on private medical and dental colleges for a period of three years.

Private medical college owners, however, have a different view. One private medical college owner told TNS that there is no federal or provincial law for opening new private medical and dental colleges. He said the government needed to regulate this sector in a positive manner. On the other hand, parents of medical students have also called for regulating the sector, including the fee structure.