interview
“Time for local bodies elections on party basis”
After the Eighteenth Amendment, the next step to effect devolution is a functional local government system.
Dr Pervez Tahir, former chief economist of the Planning Commission, shares his views on the subject
By Ather Naqvi
The News on Sunday (TNS): With the passage of Eighteenth Amendment, the devolution of power to the provinces has been effected. How do you see the provinces devolving powers to the district level?
Dr Pervez Tahir (PT): The first thing to remember is that Musharraf took away provincial powers without creating a provincial consensus. And that created a lot of resentment. He had also said that he would devolve federal powers to the provinces. That was not done. It should have been done first. Now that the federation has devolved powers to the provinces, the main objection of the provinces has been removed. And they should devolve further.

Misfortune that’s mine
Accidents in mines in Balochistan are on the rise as the authorities turn their backs to necessary safety mechanisms
By Syed Zubair Shiraz
Balochistan, being home to huge oil, gas and mineral deposits, has seen some of the deadliest accidents in the mining history of the country -- the Sorainj coalfield tragedy on March 20, 2011, that claimed 42 lives of mineworkers being the most recent and the worst. In the last two years, over 90 mineworkers have lost their lives, mostly due to lack of safety gears and ill-trained rescuers.

Yeh Woh
Sex as noun
By Masud Alam
We don’t trust our young with a car or motorcycle until they reach a certain age and learn to ride the bike or drive the car. Those who allow their children to drink alcohol or smoke tobacco, make it conditional on maturity. We do so because we want to save them from getting hurt.
But curiously, we don’t think about our youth’s welfare when we hand them a powerful tool without a user’s manual or verbal instructions of any kind, and let them learn as they use it. That tool is sex. It can give pleasure, it can bring new life into being, it can traumatise, and transmit diseases, even kill. And we do so because we can’t bring ourselves to talk or hear anything about sex as noun. We only understand it as verb, and therefore it solely concerns married couples who, experience tells us, learn by trial and error method eventually.

issue
In case of
FLOODS
Authorities fear floods can affect up to five million people in a worst-case scenario this year while reconstruction phase from last year is still ongoing
By Aoun Sahi
It took Muhammad Noshad, a 45-year-old carpenter of Pir Sabbaq village in district Nowshera, nine months to start rebuilding his house devastated last year by the raging floodwaters -- that disrupted the lives of more than 14 million people in the country.
His two-room house, typically made of mud and bricks walls and roof of iron sheets, and situated a few hundred meters away from the Kabul River, is complete now. Yet, he is nervous, as water level in the river has already started rising.
The memories of July 2010 floods that damaged almost all the houses in his village still haunt him. “Many of the residents have not repaired their houses yet. They are planning to repair their houses after the flood season. They fear they’ll be hit by floods again this year because the river’s embankment in our village has not been repaired properly,” he tells TNS.

On the run
The history of crime in our country is replete with endless tales of Proclaimed Offenders
By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed
The setting is one of the Punjab villages known for never-ending vendettas. Suddenly, one hears the news of a person transferring his property in someone else’s name. Within days of the deal, he disappears and his rivals are killed in a bloody assault. It is not a coincident; in fact the whole plan is executed systematically to avoid certain actions that law enforcing authorities may take in such cases.
The incident is just one of the many that take place in the province and beyond every other day. The crime may be different but the procedure followed to dispose of property -- at least on papers -- is almost the same. The purpose of going through this exercise, which is simple as per legal experts, is to avoid seizure of one’s property which may be attached as per law if one is declared a Proclaimed Offender (PO). On many occasions, “daring” and populist police officials have put such properties on fire and simply termed an act of revenge by the aggrieved families.

interview
“Time for local bodies elections on party basis”
After the Eighteenth Amendment, the next step to effect devolution is a functional local government system.
Dr Pervez Tahir, former chief economist of the Planning Commission, shares his views on the subject

By Ather Naqvi

The News on Sunday (TNS): With the passage of Eighteenth Amendment, the devolution of power to the provinces has been effected. How do you see the provinces devolving powers to the district level?

Dr Pervez Tahir (PT): The first thing to remember is that Musharraf took away provincial powers without creating a provincial consensus. And that created a lot of resentment. He had also said that he would devolve federal powers to the provinces. That was not done. It should have been done first. Now that the federation has devolved powers to the provinces, the main objection of the provinces has been removed. And they should devolve further.

Most provinces, when the provincial governments were formed, noticed that their opponents were nazims everywhere. When the provincial governments were formed, PML-N found PML-Q at the local level in Punjab and ANP noticed JUI-F everywhere at the local level in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Nazims were very powerful people; they had funds and influence, etc. And, naturally, political people don’t like their opponents in positions of power; and that too at the tier of government closest to people. One can understand that. But what they should have done and should do now and what they say they would do eventually is to hold local body elections. They can themselves hold elections and correct another mistake that Musharraf made; that was not to hold elections on party basis. Local body elections should be held on party basis so that a healthy competition at local level is also there -- a kind of nursery for representative polity. Therefore, it is important that a political party participates in local elections.

TNS: How has the PPP-MQM relationship been affected by local body politics in Sindh?

PT: One keeps trying to understand PPP’s relationship with the MQM. They said they would hold local body elections. The question was: when. The change has occurred after the exit of MQM and the People’s Party has gone in Sindh towards a system that was created by Ziaul Haq. We are back to the Local Government Ordinance 1979 so far as Sindh is concerned. In other provinces, they want to make amendments to the Local Government Ordinance 2001. Will the provinces do it? Now the situation is that in Sindh they have gone back to 1979. Others might do the same.

TNS: How do you see the Punjab moving for local body elections?

PT: In Punjab, the Muslim League ruled in 1979, so they think that system is better for them. Actually, they are the product of that system. The style of governance in Punjab is quite bureaucratic. It does not involve political parties and other people who can at least advise. It only involves bureaucrats. They have appointed commissioners. From the local government, powers of the Revenue Department have already been taken away and there is some change in magistracy also. All this is taking place. It is unfortunate that while the local government system is extremely important elsewhere in the world for strengthening democratic foundations, it is our history that generally the local governments are supported by military dictators, and the politicians, with a vengeance, try to undo the system created by a dictator.

TNS: What is the first step the provinces should take for moving towards the local government system?

PT: The first step is that the laws provinces have drafted on local government should be made public. There should be public debate on them and they have to be passed by the assembly. In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, local governments still have powers but they have been bureaucratised by the discontinuation of local councils. So, elections should be held and the system democratised to remove lacunas such as the election of the nazims in 2001. That was an undemocratic practice. Nazim should be elected by the district assembly in the same way a chief minister is elected by the provincial assembly.

TNS: You have also talked about changes being proposed in the 2001 law. What are those?

PT: First, the powers of the local government should be made very clear. All the basic services should be within the local domain. The provincial finance commission should provide them adequate resources to ensure service delivery. And thirdly, property tax should be collected and fully utilised by the local government. The provincial government should have nothing to do with it. Everywhere in the world, local governments are run by revenue from the property tax. We don’t collect much in property taxation because provincial governments depend largely on the National Finance Commission. In the present budget of Punjab they were supposed to make some changes and they were supposed to use a survey that had already been conducted to get new taxpayers. Now instead of using that survey they have promised a new survey. When would they conduct that, one does not know.

TNS: Control over financial allocations has been seen as a tussle between the local government representatives and the MPAs? Is there a way out?

PT: The issue will be resolved only when MPAs’ funds are stopped. Unless the practice of allocating millions of rupees funds to MNAs, MPAs and senators is not stopped, the tussle for financial allocations will continue. I think we should launch a massive education programme for MPAs telling them that if they want to work in the basic services sector they should seek election to the local council. If they want to become legislators for the province, they should become MPAs. And if they want to look at national issues such as foreign policy, security and national economy they should become MNAs. Our MNAs do not take interest in security policy issues, etc because their objective is to get re-elected, and to get re-elected they have to show what work they have done in their constituencies. If you do not give these funds to anyone, there will be no tussle. The two cannot continue like this. If the provincial government has the money it should give it to local government.

TNS: Why in your opinion has the commissionerate system been revived in Karachi?

PT: The basic reason behind this is the desire to control because dealing with four, five commissioners is a lot easier than dealing with so many district nazims with political affiliations. The bureaucrats are subservient to the government. They just carry orders. An important step, therefore, to make local government stronger is to abolish these centralised groups such as the DMG group, police group, etc. These are all federal groups. So officials of these groups are beholden to the federal government for their promotion and other issues. Colonial government had a reason to do it. They didn’t want to mix up with the masses. They just wanted orders to be carried out. But this is inconsistent with the democratic setup. So Punjab should have its own services, such as the police service, its own management service, and so on.

TNS: How would you compare Pakistan’s 2001 local government system with other local government systems elsewhere in the world?

PT: Our local government is different from India’s because they have revived their traditional punchayat system at the grassroots level and given it some powers. We can learn from them to revive our local union councils, but local government system was a better system with elected representatives. The rural-urban divide created by the colonial powers was actually abolished in this system. Tehsil municipal administration did not recognise rural boundaries. Under the 1979 ordinance, district council was concerned only with rural areas. But now the tehsil municipal administration and city district govern rural areas also. This integrative system is important if you want to look at the economy of a district as a whole. It is also important for solving important issues such as migration to urban areas. It cannot be stopped. People in search of opportunities will move and stopping them, unless the government does something for them, is unfair. They move to the periphery of cities and form what we call katchi abadis. An integrative government can make that process productive because migration is the essence of development.

TNS: How long would it take for the local government system to take root in Pakistan?

PT: It can take long because all provincial governments are opposed to local governments. The federal government is in no position to pressurise them now. In fact the federal government also made a mistake. They announced the National Finance Commission before the Eighteenth Amendment. In the National Finance Commission, provinces get 57.5 per cent of the resources. Earlier, they used to get much less. And, as a result of the Eighteenth Amendment, what is called social sector is entirely with the provincial government. But social sector has two parts: basic services and tertiary services. Basic services cannot be handled by the provincial government. It can only be handled by the local government. Similarly, we have to make tehsil hospitals more functional than creating large medical complexes in big cities.

Misfortune that’s mine

Accidents in mines in Balochistan are on the rise as the authorities turn their backs to necessary safety mechanisms

By Syed Zubair Shiraz

Balochistan, being home to huge oil, gas and mineral deposits, has seen some of the deadliest accidents in the mining history of the country -- the Sorainj coalfield tragedy on March 20, 2011, that claimed 42 lives of mineworkers being the most recent and the worst. In the last two years, over 90 mineworkers have lost their lives, mostly due to lack of safety gears and ill-trained rescuers.

That the findings of the five-member inquiry commission constituted under the Balochistan Mining Act 1923 regarding March 20, 2011 incident, have not yet been made public explains the extent of negligence on the part of quarters responsible for ensuring safety of mineworkers during work.

Experts list several reasons that lead to coalmine accidents, which can be averted or at least the damages can be minimised if mineworkers are imparted adequate training on safety precautions during work, safety equipment, ventilation inside mines, and end to primitive mining techniques.

A Balochistan Mines and Minerals Department official, privy to the commission’s inquiry on the Sorainj coalfield incident, tells TNS it was not easy for the inquiry commission to determine the exact reasons behind the accident that took place hundreds of metres deep in the mine, claiming 42 lives, as there were “no eye-witnesses”. The official, requesting anonymity, says, “The inquiry members who are first-class mining engineers, after thoroughly examining the available evidence, hold Pakistan Mining Development Corporation (PMDC), that has the rights to operate Sorainj coalfield, responsible for the accident.” According to the official, the corporation continued mining activities in the absence of a qualified mine manager and short firer, an official who supervises detonation of any solid rock hampering the digging inside mines. “It was criminal negligence, indeed. Many of the victims could have been saved if the mine had a proper ventilation system and emergency exits as bodies of only 11 mineworkers carried burn injuries. The rest of the victims died of suffocation.”

Balochistan Inspectorate of Mines, with an extended network in the districts where mining activities take place, is responsible for ensuring mineworkers’ safety during work, training miners and conducting rescue operation in case of mining mishap.

Here, one wonders, why the Balochistan Inspectorate of Mines did not intervene to stop mining despite being aware of the absence of qualified mine mangers. It is also accused of delaying the rescue operation which resulted in death of mineworkers due to suffocation.

When contacted by TNS, Balochistan Chief Inspector of Mines Iftikhar Ahmed Khan rejected the charges of negligence, saying: “One of our inspectors had visited the unfortunate mine on February 26, 2011, about a fortnight before the accident and instructed the management to halt mining activities due to the mine’s condition.”

Khan could not respond to a query why there was no follow-up visit to know whether the management of mine had complied with the inspectorate’s instructions.

Recently, the present provincial government swung into action and got the Balochistan Mines (Amendment) Bill 2011 unanimously passed from the provincial legislature, raising the excise duty from three paisa per tonne to Rs5 per tonne. The tax, which was first levied in 1923 and has not been changed since, has also been renamed as “duty for safety/rescue/training”. The funds raised under this act would be utilised on training manpower to rescue trapped miners. Besides, the government plans to purchase mine safety and rescue equipment, in addition to maintaining a rescue station.

In Muslimbagh and its surrounding areas located some 150 kilometres west of Quetta, illegal and unorganised mining has been going on for huge deposits of high quality Chromites. Local people have excavated over 1000 haulages with a daily production of about 3000 tonnes of the quality Chromite. Being owner of the entire reserves, the Provincial Mine and Mineral Department has turned a blind eye towards the mining there due to some vested interest.

Mirwais Khan Kakar, owner of Mirwais Mines Enterprises, tells TNS the Provincial Mine and Mineral Department charges Rs160 on per tonne of Chromite from the dealer. “A truck carrying Chromite cannot leave the area unless it has a permission letter from the department which is granted after payment of the tax.” However, Director General Balochistan Mine and Minerals Department Azam Khan denied collecting any sort of tax from the Chromite dealers. Rather he expressed ignorance about such a large scale mining with massive production in the area.

Yeh Woh
Sex as noun

By Masud Alam

We don’t trust our young with a car or motorcycle until they reach a certain age and learn to ride the bike or drive the car. Those who allow their children to drink alcohol or smoke tobacco, make it conditional on maturity. We do so because we want to save them from getting hurt.

But curiously, we don’t think about our youth’s welfare when we hand them a powerful tool without a user’s manual or verbal instructions of any kind, and let them learn as they use it. That tool is sex. It can give pleasure, it can bring new life into being, it can traumatise, and transmit diseases, even kill. And we do so because we can’t bring ourselves to talk or hear anything about sex as noun. We only understand it as verb, and therefore it solely concerns married couples who, experience tells us, learn by trial and error method eventually.

The first stirrings of sexuality begin as early as nine or ten years of age in girls and a couple of years later in boys. But they won’t be married till their mid or late 20s. It is a long time for a young mind and body to handle a barrage of emotions, desires and temptations they either don’t understand, or worse, have potentially harmful misconceptions about them. The price of this ‘heritage of silence’ being passed from one generation to another is enormous. Dr Syed Mubin Akhter, psychiatrist and neurologist at Karachi Psychiatrist Hospital, has seen it all first hand -- marriages broken up, or dragged on without love and intimacy, depression and feelings of inadequacy, anger and frustration, reduced productivity at work, sleep disorders, deep psychological scars of guilt and shame, disease, addiction, sexual abuse…

“In my daily practice I come across many who suffer severe anxiety and depression about their supposed physical and sexual incapacities, due to lack of knowledge about the body and its functioning. There are many who are racked by guilt because either they have no religious knowledge on sexual matters or are affected by the misunderstandings actively encouraged by sex quacks. Not only single youngsters but married people, sometimes with many children, suffer from these guilt complexes. The cause is obvious: we do not get any sexual knowledge at home or school as both parents and teachers are too embarrassed to talk about the facts of life,” says Dr. Akhter in the foreword of ‘Sex Education for Muslims’, published last year.

He terms our collective silence on the subject of sexuality a ‘conspiracy’ that is hatched by ignorance and aided by the state-controlled media that has a clear, written policy of not mentioning the word ‘sex’ never mind the romance, the suggestive dance move, the rape scene and other sexually provocative material. Private media exercises a lot more freedom but vernacular press and TV channels in particular tend to sensationalise sex rather than treat it objectively. Ostensibly, the source of our shyness in matters sexual is religion. Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi broke this myth by synthesising Islamic teachings for the guidance of youth in ‘Bahishti Zaiver’. The book still has relative acceptance among religious and conservative families that traditionally gift it to daughters at the time of their wedding. However, the pages that refer to sexuality are often sewn up or glued together. Does this not amount to censorship of Quran and hadees? asks Dr Akhter.

He quotes from religious texts to discuss ‘taboo’ matters like menstruation, anal sex, masturbation, intercourse in certain situations, semen stains, the ‘withdrawal method’, use of contraceptives etc. If Allah, His prophet, and the wives and chosen followers of the prophet can have discourses on the subject of sexuality, how is it immodest for us? If the subject was good enough to be brought up for discussions in Masjid-e-Nabvi what makes it unfit for our homes and schools?

Dr Akhter argues that a syllabus based only on Islamic teachings will suffice for sexuality education. And if parents can’t bring themselves to do the teaching, let the state do it through trained teachers. But arming our young with knowledge is imperative to protect them and to help them grow up healthy in mind and body.

We’ll make it easier on the state to do its job if we get more parents to demand age-specific and culturally appropriate sexuality or life skills education from our local schools, public or private. And for those who may be a little undecided, Dr Akhter has a solemn reassurance: “Truth and honesty about sex has never bred immorality”.

masudalam@yahoo.com

issue
In case of
FLOODS

On the run

The history of crime in our country is replete with endless tales of Proclaimed Offenders

By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed

The setting is one of the Punjab villages known for never-ending vendettas. Suddenly, one hears the news of a person transferring his property in someone else’s name. Within days of the deal, he disappears and his rivals are killed in a bloody assault. It is not a coincident; in fact the whole plan is executed systematically to avoid certain actions that law enforcing authorities may take in such cases.

The incident is just one of the many that take place in the province and beyond every other day. The crime may be different but the procedure followed to dispose of property -- at least on papers -- is almost the same. The purpose of going through this exercise, which is simple as per legal experts, is to avoid seizure of one’s property which may be attached as per law if one is declared a Proclaimed Offender (PO). On many occasions, “daring” and populist police officials have put such properties on fire and simply termed an act of revenge by the aggrieved families.

The history of crime in our country is replete with endless tales of POs who, sometimes, are even branded as heroes. For long they have been hosted as honoured guests in tribal areas against payment of fixed amounts. They would also have the liberty to operate from there and indulge in all sorts of crimes without any fear of being apprehended. Things have changed over the time, especially due to the ongoing war on terror, and the POs have spread all over the country and beyond its border in search of new safe havens.

The Punjab government has come down heavily on the police force with orders to arrest the POs whose number is constantly on the rise. Police officials claim most of the heinous crimes are committed by POs and the number of first-timers is much lower.

A police official tells TNS on conditions of anonymity that many POs enjoy patronage of the area influentials and politicians who need them badly for diverse purposes. He says it is an open secret that many riverine areas in the province are their permanent hideouts, but police do not dare venture into these areas. If they do, they have to face the wrath of their patrons, he adds.

The official says Section 212 and Section 216 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) prescribe strict punishments for those guilty of harbouring un-apprehended offenders as well as those who have escaped from custody or whose apprehension has been ordered. “Unfortunately, the innocent relatives of POs are booked under these clauses whereas the influentials that normally back them stay unharmed.”

The law and order situation cannot improve till the arrest of their patrons, the official says, adding the Rajanpur district police showed courage in April last and registered criminal cases against influential tribal leaders for sheltering criminals.

Hafiz Shahid Advocate, a criminal law practitioner, tells TNS the concept of PO is incorporated in Section 82 of Cr. PC. It states “if a court is of the opinion that a certain person against whom a warrant has been issued by it is trying to hide away from the police so that the warrant cannot be executed, then the court may publish a proclamation in writing thereby requiring him to appear on a particular day and at particular time and at a particular place (he is given at least 30 days from the date of publication).”

The proclamation has to be publicly read in a proper place in the area where the said person ordinarily resides, pasted on some prominent portion of the house or the area where he resides and a copy of the proclamation is pasted at some prominent place in the court. Besides, Shahid says, a copy of the proclamation should also be published in a daily newspaper which has circulation in the area where that person resides. “Once a person is declared a PO, the court may order for attachment of his moveable and immoveable property and police may also interrogate his relatives on suspicion of harbouring him. Besides, a PO can be arrested by any police officer or even a civilian from anywhere in the country.”

Shahid says though law makes a PO’s life extremely tough, it is also misused. Sometimes police do not follow proper procedures and place advertisements in little known journals. This happens when they collude with the opponents of a person and intentionally get a person declared as PO. Shahid tells TNS he has dealt with cases where the accused did not even know that their names were in the FIRs. The courts hardly take a lenient stance in case of POs and give judicial remand very easily.

Babar Ali, DSP Sadar Kasur, says police do take POs seriously, but lack of resources and operational difficulties limit their success. He says police of a district has to take permission from the District Police Officers (DPOs) and Inspector Generals of Police (IGPs) if it wants to go to another district or a province to nab a PO. Ideally, the police of the area where a PO is hiding must arrest him. But, in practice, the police of the district where he is wanted have to travel to that place. “This needs a lot of resources including logistical support which is not available to them.”

Mujahid Squad Lahore SP Athar Hameed tells TNS the mobility of POs is a major issue nowadays. The POs from as far as Bajaur Agency and Afghanistan are wanted in crimes committed in Lahore, he says, adding they follow the policy of hit and run. “Most of the bank robbers arrested in the city were Pathans. They flee back to their cities after committing the crime. Police have prepared scientific data of such POs and are preparing a strategy to hunt them all over the country,” Athar says.

|Home|Daily Jang|The News|Sales & Advt|Contact Us|

BACK ISSUES