expose’
At their expense
A new crisis can be round the corner for Britain with the scandal of corrupt expense-claims system of MPs
By Dr Arif Azad
The crisis over excessive expenses of British MPs erupted when Daily Telegraph, two weeks ago, ran an investigative piece on the corrupt expense claims system. As the investigation unfolded, many MPs from all major parties were exposed.

President Zardari’s announcement to "take over" Islamic seminaries is a reminder of another unfinished business -- streamlining the madrassas. The project was started by president Pervez Musharraf in 2002.

The president, addressing a community dinner during his recent visit to Washington, said, "All madrassas in the country will be taken over by the government to separate the students from extremism and impart modern as well as religious education."

Before 2002, the number of registered madrassas in Pakistan was not more than 6,000, according to the figures provided by the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Around 13,000 seminaries were registered across the country till 2007. According to the latest figures, March 2009 to be exact, the number of registered madrassas in Pakistan has now reached 15,725.

According to officials of the religious affairs ministry, these figures are now updated every three months. They claim to register only those madrassas that offer boarding and lodging excluding the smaller ones that offer Hifz-e-Quran and the recitation of the Quran etc. If the smaller madrassas are included, the figure can exceed 40,000, they state.

Mufti Munibur Rehman, one of the representatives of Wafaqul Madaris, said the issue must not be resolved only to please external players. He said the present government has not "contacted us even once to discuss the issue. We are ready to accept the reforms which are in the better interest of our students and without being pressurised." He said the Wafaqul Madaris should be declared an independent educational board, with a certificate equivalent to Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education. Rehman questions that if the government can allow Aga Khan Education Board in private sector, why can’t it permit independent boards of Wafaqul Madaris.

Rehman, however, refused the charges of ambiguous, illegal, unlawful and un-Islamic activities urging the government to "notify such madrassas and give proof of their militant actions. When we received proofs of extremism in Lal Masjid, we cancelled their registration."

When he took oath in March 2008, Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani announced to set up a Madrassa Welfare Authority -- a seminary reforms project announced under PM’s 100 days programme. The Madrassa Welfare Authority, which was supposed to be functional by July 9, 2008 has not yet been set up because the task is yet to be assigned between Ministries of interior, religious affairs and education. Previously, seminary reforms were carried out in coordination between the ministries of religious affairs and education.

Former Education Minister Lt Gen (r) Javed Ashraf Qazi however does not buy the "co-ordination" theory. He told TNS that the efforts to bring madrassa reforms failed during Musharraf’s time due to various reasons. "The alliance of madrassas (Wafaqul Madaris and Ittehad-Tanzimat-e-Madaris-e-Deeniya) refused to accept the federal government’s reforms. The religious ministry backed these seminaries to put things in doldrums. First, madrassas refused to enlist and demanded to be registered under the Companies Act, refusing also to provide other required details i.e. number of students, boarders, sources of funding etc."

The previous government also demanded the seminaries to expel their foreign students and stop enrolling new ones. The demand was rejected by the seminaries who said that the admitted students would continue to study and for the new students No Objection Certificate (NOC) will be obtained from their home country and the government of Pakistan. They also refused to disclose the sources of their funding besides denying internal audit through a third party. "Besides, they also demanded to make each Wafaqaul Madaris a separate government-approved education board. This would have enabled them to award their own degrees equivalent to that of Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education."

Rs1 billion funding, according to Qazi, was allocated for introducing other general subjects including English in their curriculum. But the funds remained underutilised as they were used for administrative expenditures only. "When the government teams went across the country for registration, around 800 madrassas denied them entry into their premises. At that time, the number of seminaries was around 13,000 with more than 1.5 million students," he said.

Former secretary of religious affairs Vakil Ahmed Khan says overall Rs 5.792 billion was allocated to introduce general subjects in madrassas. "Ministry of Religious Affairs was only facilitating the registration process and actual figures should be available with the education ministry."

In 2003, the government allocated about $50 million annually to provide assistance to registered seminaries, especially by paying the salaries of teachers hired to teach non-religious subjects and start computer classes but the amount remained underutilised.

A H Nayyar, noted analyst working with Islamabad-based NGO Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), said any government that announces madrassa reform must first identify the nature of reform. "It is clear that the present claim of reforming madrassas emanates from an urge to eliminate sources of extremism in the society. But even if the government succeeds in eliminating teachings of extremism from madrassas, it would not be enough in eliminating extremism from the society."

Nayyar believes the roots of extremism lie in so many other nooks and corners. "Almost all agree that the extremism has taken roots because of the absence of governance and justice in the society. If the government doesn’t have any plan to fill this vacuum, any action against madrassas would be meaningless and only temporary. If it does have a plan to improve its governance and the system of justice, it will have to share it with public at large, for no scheme for good governance and justice would succeed without an active participation by the general public."

Nayyar claims that the people behind Musharraf’s efforts were those who were influenced by Jamaat-e-Islami. "The Jamaat has been trying for quite some time to convince madrassas to include modern secular subjects in their curriculum. Various meetings were held with the leaders of the four boards of Madrassa education which failed. Most madrassa leaders argued, among other things, that if a sudden and a radical change is brought into the curriculum of religious madrassas it will be difficult to find people who can lead prayers, recite Quran accurately, or even perform burial rites."

Fearing opposition from madrassas, Nayyar said, Musharraf government suggested a modified curriculum that retained everything existing and added a few subjects like English, Mathematics, sciences and social studies from the public school curriculum. "A state grant was also offered for those who agreed to the government’s proposals. Despite the monetary incentive a majority of madrassas spurned the offer. Those who accepted, however, knew that the modification meant added burden. In any case, what escaped everyone’s mind was the fact that the madrassas teaching methodology centred on rote system and the added subjects would be taught and learnt in the same spirit."

Email: vaqargillani@gmail.com

Can blogs really replace the newspapers and TV channels? How would you define journalism if anyone can provide stories? How to cover new media technologies and freedom of expression? How journalism can continue to exist and prosper? How journalists can encourage and explore innovation in developing countries? Is media prepared to face its own problems before describing any one else’s?

These were some of the questions raised at IJ-6, the Sixth Annual Conference on Innovation Journalism held at Stanford University, Palo Alto, USA from May 18-20, 2009. The event brought together working journalists, media entrepreneurs, management professionals, representatives of public relations companies, academicians and others from all over the world.

The focus of the conference was exploring and dealing with innovations in journalism but the debate about the survival of this profession dominated every session. Major topics for discussion included the importance and relevance of newspapers in the overwhelming presence of other mediums. Why, for instance, would people buy newspapers when they can read the content online for free and what use the professional journalists be when any person could just get up and post on a website.

The unending job layoffs in American newsrooms made these observations relevant. While the effect of global economic recession cannot be ruled out in this respect, the changing reading habits of readers and the use of modern tools of communication in news dissemination also have a major role to play. For a participant coming from Pakistan like this scribe, this factor may not be as relevant. But, in countries with high internet usage, the reader is fast turning to digital devices to read news online. Resultantly, the advertisers are shying away from placing advertisements in print and are opting for other choices instead.

Discouraging, isn’t it? Yes, but the good thing about the conference was that it also highlighted the opportunities lying in store for the journalists and media entrepreneurs alike. For example, Vint Cerf, the Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, was of the opinion that from now onwards branding would be the key to a journalist’s success. Amid a sea of information, according to him, the only relevant content is the one that draws reader’s attention. "Anything that draws attention has the potential to be supported by advertising".

To put it simply, internet provides journalists a chance to build a community of their dedicated readers. If the content produced by them is informative, well-researched, entertaining and immaculate, the reader is bound to reach out for it. For advertisers, the figures of a unique hit on a particular website are a simple yardstick to reach a decision. It’s a strong possibility that individual writers rather than the newspapers would one day have more value for advertisers as all they want is more and more visitors to a particular web page. The number of hits, in future, would become more relevant than the CV of a journalist while applying for a job and asking for a dream salary package.

Internet is also an opportunity for traditional newspapers to gauge which of its sections is popular among the readers. For many newspapers, internet has provided a much larger readership which could not be tapped otherwise. If a newspaper publishes 0.1 million hard copies, its online readership from all over the globe can be as high as one million.

Another challenge facing the journalists of the future is to produce content that the reader looks for instead of what the newspaper wants him to read. In the words of Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief and publisher of MIT’s Technology Review, "one of the paradoxes of the digital world is that while it has increased the sense of ownership that readers have over magazines and newspapers, it has also made it tremendously easy for them to leave a page with the click of a cursor". The situation is quite different with printed newspaper. You buy one newspaper and have to go through it even if you do not find much of interest in it.

Apart from keynote speakers 15 mid-career journalists who had spent three months as Innovation Journalism fellows in American newsrooms also shared their experiences with the participants. Their presentations were mainly on how journalists can explore novel ways in different fields and help economies grow. Fortunately there were four participants from Pakistan -- quite a significant number. These fellows had been sponsored by the Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) Pakistan which is a USAID project in Pakistan. Stephen Manual, CSF Pakistan representative, shared with the participants how the fund was working on finding ways to make Pakistani businesses competitive on global scene. "We decided to keep media on board as we believe no such initiative can succeed without its involvement and contribution."

Of the many innovative projects discussed at the event, World of Good and AllVoices won great applause. The former is a company founded by a 38-year old woman Priya Haji. Born to parents who had migrated from India to US, she roped in mainstream retail partners including e-Bay and created offline and online distribution channels for thousands of artisan producers in the developing world. The company helps sell goods like handicrafts, handbags, paperweights, produced by these artisans at 1200 locations.

AllVoices is an initiative taken by Amra Tareen, a Pakistani, who has an MBA from Harvard University and a Bachelors of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from University of New South Wales, Australia. Allvoices is a global, open-media news site where anyone can report from anywhere. It is not simply a blog as every post goes through effective accuracy checks. The editors don’t choose what story goes on front page. It’s the community that decides its placement. "The more buzz a report gets, the higher up it moves."

It’s an old Lahori habit. If nothing is seriously bothering us or weighing on our minds, we take up something trivial and make a mountain out of a molehill. Now we seem to be turning this on its head. There is plenty to keep us thinking right now, for instance there is a full fledged war going on in the Northern areas, and as a consequence more than a million people have left their homes and hearths and are moving from camp to camp with nowhere to go.

And yet do you know what is bothering us? Its illegal parking for cars! The city government has long got on to a useful habit; wherever lots of people come for shopping or to drop their children, they cordon off a large area where someone gets a licence for charging people to park their cars. Now people have got on to a new habit. Wherever there is need for people to park their cars, they take it on themselves to look after the cars, issue tickets for the purpose and make it official.

They do not have permission from the authorities and for the parking they usually use the footpath or simply the side of the road. The city government has decreed that the fee for parking is to be Rs10 for a car and Rs5 for a motorbike. These people are not bothered by such rules and charge Rs20 for a car. Occasionally the authorities gird up their loins and send around 'inspectors’ to check on these illegal parking arrangements. These 'inspectors’ simply get a share of the proceeds and report back that everything is hunky dory.

Hundreds of these illegal parking establishments have grown up all over town and the authorities do not know what to do about it. Meanwhile all the money that should go to the city government is going into private hands. Of course, nature has her own way of compensating. In this case it is the American Ambassador; a gracious lady who has taken it upon herself to look after the wonderful heritage of Lahore.

The Alamgiri Gate is the main gate of the Lahore Fort, built by the Emperor Aurangzeb, but since the Mughals left it has fallen into disuse and is in urgent need of repair. Some time ago the Ambassador took it upon herself to donate a large sum of money, which has been spent and the gate is spanking new. She went on to hand it over to the archaeology department.

That seems to have encouraged her and now she is looking out for the ancient city of Uch, a pre-Mughal Sultanate city with wonderful old shrines which are also in need of repair. She is promising to persuade the State Department to dish out more funds. I think the Archaeology Department has got a good thing on its hands. Maybe the City Government can get it to look into the illegal parking problem too.

The crisis over excessive expenses of British MPs erupted when Daily Telegraph, two weeks ago, ran an investigative piece on the corrupt expense claims system. As the investigation unfolded, many MPs from all major parties were exposed.

The roll call of those named and shamed included three prominent Asian MPs -- Shahid Malik, Khalid Mehmood and Keith Vaz -- on top of a list of all major grandees from three major parties: Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats. Shahid Malik, of Pakistani parentage, and a Junior Justice Minister, was forced to step down in the wake of revelation of his expense claims.

The present system allows MPs to claim expense for a second home in London if the constituency happens to be far away from London. By using the vague definition of a second home and expenses incurred in the performance of parliamentary duties, MPs from a cross section of political spectrum have seemed to bend and interpret rules loosely. The result has been a range of expense invoices to the tax-payers from house furnishings to second home, which are either not used for the specified parliamentary work, or used to house relatives rent free.

In addition, the practice of hiring spouse or family members for parliamentary administrative or research work, though in the investigative loop for some time, also came into sharp relief as a spin off story. Though media investigation hit the political world in full ferocity about two weeks back, many shrewd observers had seen it coming long time ago.

The speaker of the house, Michael Martin, had been under pressure to get to grips with the expenses issue for some time. Only a while ago there was a concerted effort to have this issue addressed by the speaker, but he sidestepped the gravity of concerns by shooting down the proposal and sticking to the practice of self-regulation of the MPs. Not surprisingly, the long-simmering wrath of the public (and the MPs who blamed the speaker for the crisis) was kindled against the speaker when revelations of wrongdoing began to pour in. Naturally, the speaker was the casualty, who took the hint and announced his departure. The other high-profile casualty was Andrew Mackay, a close confidante of David Cameroon, the leader of the conservative party.

The expense claim scandal is not confined to the House of Commons alone. The stink has travelled upwards to the House of Lords where two members have been suspended over allegations of accepting cash for amendments. The gravity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that Michael Martin is the first speaker to have been forced out of the House of Commons in the last 300 years. For the moment, the scale and speed of corrupt practices is of such an order that no one in the House of Commons seems squeaky clean. Naturally, this has led to siren calls for a constitutional overhaul.

The slowly unfolding agenda for reforms ranges from open selection of candidates by the public, recall of corrupt parliamentarian at any point in the parliamentary calendar, and introduction of a variant of proportional representation system. The immediate anger, however, is focussed on ousting the bad apples from the parliament. This feeling has led to a call for the need to inject more independents into the parliament to reduce the clubbable and mutual beneficiaries from all parties.

Many media celebrities like Martin Bell have indicated their intention to stand as independents (Martin Bell, one time veteran war correspondent for the BBC has a history of putting himself up as independent in seats previously occupied by tainted MPs). The independents’ option, though attractive with a minority, enjoys no traction. Resort to this option will do more harm than good, say the critics. Similarly the recall option has been problematic as it requires a very active citizenry involved in the selection and monitoring of selected candidates on a sustained basis.

The other option being widely canvassed is the calling of early general election to weed out rotten MPs as soon as possible. Whether the new election is called or not, one thing is clear: The composition of the new House of Commons is going to be largely different from the one we currently have. The Times has calculated that in the event of general election, 325 members from the current pool of MPs are going to lose their seats either though association with expense claims scandal, retirement or parties themselves forcing the tainted MPs to stand down. Thus the new parliament is going to wear an entirely new look if The Times estimate is correct. There is a fat chance that more members from ethnic minorities are to coast into parliament on the back of new parliamentary blood mood that has gripped Britain lately.

Dr Arif Azad, Islamabad-based policy analyst, worked closely with British parliamentarians on ethnic minority rights issues in Britain. Arif_azad6@hotmail.com

It was Saturday night in Karachi and the Federal B area was swamped in darkness for 24 hours. KESC’s excuses of a 'technical fault’ did not pacify the angry residents who had been enduring the 420C heat sans water and electricity. Their violent reaction was seen by the world -- tyres were burnt at Shahrah-e-Pakistan Highway and stones were pelted at KESC offices forcing the staff to flee. Little blame goes to the people who had been bearing 8 to 12 hours of unannounced loadshedding.

Faulty transmission and distribution lines with substandard material is said to be the main cause of the prolonged loadshedding and frequent power failures in the city besides theft of electricity. According to KESC sources, the distribution losses are as high as 32 percent in the city.

"Kunda System is the main cause of the distribution losses," says Syed Faraz Ahmed, a spokesman of KESC. Talking to TNS, he says the company has taken serious steps to minimise distribution losses and increase generation. "We have removed thousands of Kundas in recent days and serious steps have been taken to increase the power generation capacity," he said.

Political leaders and industrialists seem to have arrived at a consensus that KESC has failed to deliver even after four years of privatisation. MQM’s Rabita Committee has demanded that the privatisation of the KESC be revoked. The Karachi City District Council came up with a unanimous resolution to nationalise KESC asking for an alternative source of power for the city. It also invited a delegation of private power company from Korea to give a presentation on a Korean power-generating unit.

KESC is said to be increasing its internal generation capacity, adding a 560 MW power plant, obtained from General Electrics (GE), Ahmed adds. He says the plant is to be completed in four phases with the first unit expected to be installed by May 2011 while the second and the third to be commissioned in June and July 2011 respectively. The Steam Turbine will be commissioned by January 2012, thereby achieving total capacity of approximately 500 MW connected to the 220 kV network through GIS.

Besides adding permanent power and rental power to its grid, Ahmed informs KESC has also launched a Captive Power Policy to utilise the excessive available power capacity of industrial units. In this regard, agreements have been signed with the local industries which are generating excessive power.

Increased power demand and shortage of water in dams has left the whole country without power. But Karachi particularly suffers more due to the growing gap between demand and supply with rapid growth in population and increase in use of electric appliances including air conditioners, refrigerators etc. Compared to the rest of the country, the annual demand of power in Karachi is around 10 percent.

Karachi, with its estimated population of 18 million, needs at least 2400MW electricity. KESC is generating only 900MW by its power generation units. KESC also purchases power from Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), Independent Power Producers (IPPs), Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP) etc. Even then the city faces a shortage of between 280MW to 400 MW. To meet this shortage it resorts to loadshedding. Due to weary distribution system, the loadshedding also causes power failures and tripping of its wires and pole mounted transformers (PMTs).

Despite the government’s claims of no loadshedding in the industrial area, the frequent power failures have badly hampered the industrial and commercial activities of the country’s industrial hub. The industrialists argue that the reason is KESC’s failure to comply with the government’s instruction.

The total generation capacity of installed units of KESC is 1735MW but their worn out units can only now produce 1342MW. However, that capacity is also not utilised. "The company is trying to conserve its cash flow and reduce losses by not doing proper maintenance and upgradation of its system," says Majid Aziz, former President of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry and former Director of KESC.

Aziz adds that KESC’s previous private management, at the time of privatisation in 2005 had pledged to invest $500 million in KESC over a period of three years for increasing generating capacity. But it failed to deliver.

In the privatisation deal, the government had transferred its 73 percent shares, along with management control, to the new owner that was a consortium of KES Power Limited, Hassan Associates (Private) Limited and Premier Mercantile Services (Private) Limited. The management employed Siemens Pakistan Engineering Limited as the Operations and Management (O&M) Contractor for the operation and management of the company.

Under Siemens frequent changes in its top management further aggravated the situation as no new power generation unit was added. In 2008, the management cancelled Siemens’ contract. Following this, Abraaj Capital, a private equity firm in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asian (MENASA) region took over the KESC in September 2008.

Although the government has no plans to privatise the utility in the near future, due to legal protection to privatisation, the federal government is not happy with the affairs of KESC. Federal Minister for Water and Power, Raja Pervez Ashraf stated at the floor of National Assembly that the government will retake the management control of KESC if the new administration fails to improve the efficiency of the company.

Despite the claims made by the federal minister that there would be no loadshedding in the country by the end of the year, the industrialists, businessmen and common citizens have doubts; their argument being that the government has not seriously taken measures to increase power generation capacity.

Dubai is often seen as the crown jewel of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Over a long period of time it has built up a sterling reputation, especially in the eyes of the western world, as the place to be in terms of the services sector, particularly banking, finance and, of late, construction. However, the global recession seems to have changed all that with the city-state taking a hit in a major way -- to the extent that it had to turn to Abu Dhabi (which has most of the oil) for help.

For most Pakistanis -- despite the fact that those who go there mostly do menial jobs -- the perception of Dubai has always been a good one. The shopping is said to be excellent and there is apparently a lot that one can do including skiing (of course the snow is artificial). However, there are some who have always thought the city to be flashy, ostentatious and pretentious and found its skyscrapers more or less ugly concrete behemoths in the middle of a large desert. That is, of course, one opinion.

But the impact of the global recession is having an effect -- as it would and should -- on people who had the kind of jobs that the city became known for all over the world. Only a couple of weeks ago, one came across a report in a British newspaper which spoke of how a British woman was literally living in her luxury vehicle in a parking lot. She didn’t have any money to pay the parking charge but was being allowed to stay by the lot’s attendants out of compassion. And how did this happen? Because the woman’s husband, who apparently had a good job, was suddenly laid off. Once that happened, the couple’s debt was difficult to service -- the debt they had built up purchasing their apartment through a mortgage and through leading a high-end lifestyle.

The article said that as soon as the man was sacked, his creditors were notified and his credit cards were all frozen. And since he couldn’t pay his house and other loans, he ended up going to jail for around 18 months. As a consequence, the wife, who turned to living in their car, had no money and apparently also did not have the wherewithal to borrow from friends or family back home in the UK. All she can now do is wait for her husband to be released and live off the little money that she had on her own -- and her home is now her car.

The plight of the lower skilled workers is worse and is best captured by a recent report released by Human Rights Watch (HRW). Issued on May 19, the report revealed the sorry lives of workers being used to build a new "island development" in the UAE. The project is worth around $27 billion, has several American corporations as partners and is being built near Abu Dhabi.

The HRW report said that the companies supplying the labour, construction companies and the labour laws themselves were all responsible for creating an environment where exploitation and abuse were rampant and that this, in some cases, included even forced labour.

The 80-page report The Island of Happiness: Exploitation of Migrant Workers on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi found that while the UAE government has moved to improve housing conditions and ensure the timely payment of wages in recent years, many labour abuses remain commonplace. It said that several well-known American and French institutions were planning to open branches on the island and these included the Guggenheim, New York University and the French Museum Agency (responsible for the Louvre Abu Dhabi).

HRW further said that most of the workers helping with the construction came from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and that "based on interviews with migrant workers, and meetings with UAE and French government officials, as well as officers of international institutions and corporations with projects on the island", the report came to the conclusion that it was able to document a "cycle of abuse" that left most of the migrant workers "deeply indebted, badly paid, and unable to stand up for their rights or even quit their jobs".

It said that the fault lay in part with the authorities responsible for developing Saadiyat Island because they failed to tackle the root causes of the worker abuse: unlawful recruiting fees, broken promises of wages, and a sponsorship system which gave an employer virtually complete power over its workers.

HRW said that to obtain the visas needed to work in the UAE, nearly all workers that the group interviewed said that they paid hefty amounts agents in their home countries. Since the agents or agencies promised good salaries for jobs in the UAE, many workers sold their assets -- such as homes or land -- for paying the fee, and those who didn’t have any assets took out loans on high interest rates.

Upon arrival in the UAE, HRW said, the workers -- many of whom are illiterate -- are made to sign contracts with the construction companies on terms that are much worse than what they had been promised back home by the agents. For this the workers have virtually no recourse, the report said. It pointed out that UAE laws prohibit agencies or agents from charging workers such fees but that the law is often not enforced. Further, there are no penalties if companies, pursuing their own financial interests, knowingly work with agencies that make workers pay the fees.

Furthermore, virtually all migrant workers interviewed "complained of low pay and poor-quality healthcare". They also said that they could not effectively demand better pay or living conditions, because UAE laws do allow workers to form unions, bargain collectively or strike. What happens in fact is that the 'sponsorship’ system allows the companies virtually total control over the workers’ lawful employment and presence in the country, with grants of visas tied to individual employers. All workers said that when they arrived in the UAE, their employers had confiscated their passports and that they cannot quit because if they try to do that the employers can get their visas revoked -- and that would lead to deportation.

HRW also said that the accounts of some workers suggested that working conditions were such that the individuals were more or less working as forced labour. This was based on reports from these workers that if they tried to quit before two years into a job, their employer would threaten them with a heavy fine.

The writer is Editorial Pages Editor of The News. Email: omarq@cyber.net.pk