Drastic vaccine ste Fi dussemiattvasiink vaccinations mandatory and to block the salaries of government employees who are not inoculated is indeed a drastic measure, as admitted by the province’s chief minister himself. The announcement has come as the country battles the third wave of the coronavirus with a vaccination rollout which this far has covered 3.7m individuals with one dose. While the Sindh government has good reasons to fear a scenario in which vaccine hesitancy leads to a continuing threat from Covid-19 and lethal variants, the order to make it compulsory and to tie it to incomes needs to be re-examined. In many countries, though SOPs such as mask-wearing and distancing are compulsory, vaccination itself is largely still voluntary. In the United States, for instance, officials are going all out to incentivise citizens to get a jab but are staying away from making vaccines compulsory so as not to overstep when it comes to individual liberty. In Ohio, the governor has announced a weekly $1m prize draw that only vaccinated citizens can enter. In Maryland, state employees are paid $100 if they get both doses. In New York, those who get vaccinated will receive a seven-day Metro card and even tickets to a baseball game. The idea behind these incentives is to encourage people to get vaccinated voluntarily — an exercise that builds trust between citizens and the state. In Pakistan, where citizen trust in public institutions is generally low, a coercive policy threatens to further undermine public trust confidence. This could have consequences for adherence to important public health measures. For vaccine sceptics, a mandatory vaccine order will fuel resentment and may be viewed as a form of state oppression. Though the government could justify such measures in the interest of public health and safety due to the unprecedented nature of the threat, there are several other steps it can take to encourage people to get vaccinated voluntarily. This exercise will be contingent on building trust, educating citizens and giving incentives to persuade vaccine sceptics. Though the Sindh government’s early signalling when it came to Covid-19 prevention and SOPs was exemplary, the PPP’s participation in mass PDM rallies was totally at odds with scientific advice and gave the wrong message to the population. The party needs to do better and act as a role model for citizens so that trust can be gained. A door-to-door awareness campaign is also critical, as is messaging from public figures and government officials. Conspiracy theories must be battled in all public spaces through ads, mainstream media and even mosque sermons. Fear and mistrust can be overcome to some extent through awareness, incentives and trust-building measures. Penalties and punishments for vaccine refusals should really be a last resort. More importantly, the government must ensure there are enough free vaccines for those who want them. ovate wiur camsPayment to IPPs HE government has finally paid the first tranche of the , outstanding bills of 20 independent power producers out of the 46 generation companies with whom it had signed revised power purchase agreements months ago to secure future tariff concessions. The SAPM Power took to Twitter on Friday to announce that this represented the government’s firm resolve to settle the issue of the power sector’s circular debt once and for all. In all, the government has paid Rs89.2bn to the 20 IPPs or 40pc of their unpaid bills of Rs225bn. The first payment to the rest of the IPPs is being withheld owing to various reasons, including inquiries launched by NAB against power companies set up under the 2002 power policy for allegedly making excess profits of around Rs54bn. The disputed excess profits constitute just above 13pc of the total unpaid bills of Rs403bn the government owes to the 46 IPPs. The government had agreed to pay these bills in two instalments within six months of the revision in their PPAs as part of its plan to liquidate the power sector’s growing circular debt that has already topped the Rs2.3tr mark. The government decision to withhold payment defies all logic since the revised PPAs with the 2002 IPPs provided for independent arbitration under the Arbitration Submission Agreement option on alleged excess profits for an amicable resolution of the dispute. The decision of the accountability watchdog to target particular IPPs is also surprising since the profit earned by the IPPs, according to Nepra, “would be higher or lower than the return on equity allowed to them” because of such factors as operational efficiencies, cost- saving measures, better project management, etc. NAB intervention in purely technical issues is uncalled for since the regulator had already started investigating allegations of excess profits. Pakistan has a very poor track record of honouring commitments made to investors, and has suffered immensely on this count. Consider the example of Reko Diq where an international arbitration tribunal slappeé a fine of nearly $6bn on Pakistan for revoking the agreement with Australian mining giant TTC, damaging the country’s credibility in the eyes of foreign investors. In order to avoid further damage, the government needs to tell NAB authorities to back off, and implement the agreements with the IPPs unless it wants to sour ties further with investors. The sooner the matter is closed the better for foreign investment in the country. Scanned with CamScTraces of Bollywood AST week, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Directorate of l Archaeology & Museums finally took possession, after much back and forth, of the ancestral homes in old Peshawar of Bollywood legends Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar. On Tuesday, the city deputy commissioner issued a notification of the transfer of ownership of the properties to the relevant provincial department under the colonial-era compulsory property acquisition law. It had been announced months ago that the locations would be restored and. reopened as museums. The sites have over the years suffered grievous damage. The news must have been met with mixed reactions. Pakistan’s officialdom has always displayed a penchant for flaunting the country’s richly woven tapestry of cultural heritage. On the ground, however, it is fairly uncommon to see this lofty rhetoric translated into action. Things might be inching forward, though. The PTI government has laid particular emphasis on tourism as one of the tools in the country’s arsenal of ‘soft power’. The KP government’s promises in terms of the Bollywood stars’ ancestral residences follows on other headliners such as the excavation some months ago of a Buddhist site in the area, and the opening of Peshawar’s Sethi Haveli as a museum. True, grave problems and systemic inefficiencies remain, such as artefact theft and the failure to protect sites against defacement by an under-educated public. Still, one hopes that in the case of the Kapoor and Kumar havelis, legal tangles and officialdom’s inadequacies are not allowed to stymie worthy projects. Other provinces must step up their efforts too; sites deserving of protection and display adorn the entire country. The Radio Pakistan building in Karachi is one worthy of mention because Sindh is in particular lagging behind in showcasing its ample heritage. The upper parts of the country have fared slightly better. For Pakistan to cement its place amongst thoughtful, civilised nations, documenting and preserving its history is vital. The importance of areas of endeavour such as archaeology and heritage preservation must never be underestimated. Scanned with CamScBILAL MEHBOOB _ ss i c == ‘Test case of politica nance Ineffective regulation of flow of money in politics can corrupt political institutions. THE regulation of political finance (PF) offers one of the greatest challenges to democracies around the world. Political parties, elected legisla- tors and governments can become hostage to pow- erful and extremely rich interest groups, if politi- cal finance is not effectively regulated and institu- tions entrusted with the task don’t have robust capacity to enforce the regulations. It is true that, political parties and election campaigns require funds for political participation and representa- tion, but ineffective regulation of the flow of money in politics can corrupt political institutions and lead to political corruption and damage public trust in democratic institutions and processes. PF deals with funding of and spending by politi- cal parties, candidates for political office, election audited consolidated statements of accounts duly certified by the party head or his designated offi- cial every year. All these documents submitted by the individuals and the parties are made public through gazette notifications. Although there is definitely room for improve- ment, Pakistan arguably has a robust legal frame- work for the PF system. The greatest weakness of the system, however, and like all other laws of the land, lies in its enforcement. The ECP, which is an independent and powerful institution mandated to manage all affairs dealing with elections, has been reluctant to assert its authority in the past. Lately, it has demonstrated that it is now ready to exercise its authority and withstand pressure from other institutions. tions, if proved, may carry serious consequences for the PTI and its chairman culminating even in the party’s dissolution. It is, at least partly, a meas- ure of the weak capacity and will of the ECP that the case which should have been decided in months, if not weeks, has lingered on for nearly seven years and is still going around in circles. This delay is also partly attributable to the country’s faulty judicial system. A perusal of the time line of the case tells a sad and painful story of how this most celebrated case relating to PF has been dealt with by the ECP, the courts of law and the political party in question, The ECP has conducted more than 70 hearings of the case during the past six and a half years and passed around two dozen orders, some of Scanned with CamScim poutics can corrupt poutical instirutions ana lead to political corruption and damage public trust in democratic institutions and processes. PF deals with funding of and spending by politi- cal parties, candidates for political office, election campaigns and elected representatives. Each dem ocratic state has put together a set of laws to man- age PF. Usually, one or more state institutions are entrusted with the critical task of enforcement of the PF legal framework. As the power and reach of domestic and foreign interest groups have increased and we have seen the emergence of cor- porate giants commanding budgets far bigger than those of many developing states, the vulnerability of politics to such interests has increased manifold, ‘The management of the PF system has, therefore, become more complex and exceedingly important with time. Societies that have failed to upgrade their PF systems and build the capacity of institu- tions responsible for ensuring the integrity of PF, are at great risk of falling prey to vested interests. Pakistan’s PF is mainly governed by the Elections Act, 2017, and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is entrusted with the responsi- bility of overseeing the system. Submission of elab- orate statements of assets and liabilities by elec- tion candidates at the time of filing nomination papers and by elected representatives annually are two important features of Pakistan’s PF system dealing with individuals. Likewise, political par- ties are required to submit details of election spending after each general election and its manage au! arrairs aeaiing witn elecnons, nas ven reluctant to assert its authority in the past. Lately, it has demonstrated that it is now ready to exercise its authority and withstand pressure from other institutions. The capacity of the ECP’s PF wing, however, urgently needs to be up-scaled. It is important that the PF wing has the capability to undertake regu- lar detailed scrutiny and even do a forensic audit of at least some selected financial statements submit- ted by politicians and political parties periodically. ‘What is going to prove a test case for the PF wing and the ECP in the next few weeks and months is the professional investigation and expeditious dis- posal of allegations of prohibited funding received by four major political parties of Pakistan. It will be a test of both the will and competence of the ECP. Take the relatively recent allegations against the PML-N, PPP and JULF, the oldest of these cases is the one against the current ruling party, the PTI. The case started with a petition filed before the ECP as far back as Nov 14, 2014, by a founder mem- ber and former central information secretary of the party who alleged that the party has not only received prohibited foreign funding but has also indulged in money laundering and the misuse of funds. Each annual consolidated statement of accounts submitted by the PTI carried the certifi- cation by the party chairman and present prime minister Imran Khan that no prohibited funding was received by the party. Therefore, the allega- relating to Fr nas been aeait witn py te Ur, tne courts of law and the political party in question, The ECP has conducted more than 70 hearings of the case during the past six and a half years and passed around two dozen orders, some of which have not even been complied with. It constituted the scrutiny committee in March 2018 to examine the PTI’s accounts and submit its report by April 17, 2020. The report submitted by the committee was so shoddy that the ECP rejected the report and asked for the final report to be submitted by Oct 11, 2020. Although the scrutiny committee has met about 75 times so far, it has not completed its assignment and its head, a senior ECP official, has said that the proceedings might continue ‘forever’, as reported in the media. The PTI approached the courts around a dozen times to challenge the ECP’s juris- diction to probe its accounts and other legal issues. A review of the media reports indicate that the PTI sought adjournment of the case close to 30 times and changed its legal counsel at least eight times. Irrespective of the final outcome of the case, the key question remains whether Pakistan and its institutions will continue to deal with the critical question of political finance in the same way as they are handling the PTI foreign funding case. m The writer is president of the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development And Transparency. president@pildat.org ‘Twitter: @ABMPildat Scanned with CamScBY ABBAS NASIR WITH the tiniest rays of hope for a change in the country’s skewed power equilibrium disappearing with the disintegration of the PDM, the politics of compromise by the compromised leaders of the main opposition parties has left one political player unchallenged and ascendant. ‘You get no points for guessing who that is. And in, the current circumstances where, according to the prime minister and his information minister, the media is totally free, I don’t have to tell you as you would know already. After all, what good is a media, especially if it’s freer than in the West, as Imran Khan often tells us based on his ‘18 years of experience of playing cricket and living in England’ fit eaves Pakistanis uninformed about what is happening at home? However, in the unlikely event you don’t know, don’t expect me to tell you. I am unashamedly meek; lack the spine some of my journalist friends have displayed. They did so, knowing well the likely consequences: hardship on themselves and The term ‘two-time’ loser may not adequately describe such a wretched member of the Fourth Estate. I'd say three-time loser may be more accu- rate. Yes, because in between the slurs and the forced joblessness, the more defiant ones will also get thrashed, shot at, even killed. It is equally true that watching the idiot box one gets the distinct impression that there is no short- age either of ‘co-opted journalists’ who have fully embraced authoritarian values and thrive on regurgitating those unembarrassed each morning and evening, like a life-affirming mantra. And then there are those who can be likened to Not only the transgressors but the ‘opposition’ political parties too will be judged Faint ray of hope gone too It is not clear if this is why the PDM forced the PPP’s hand the following month by asking for resig- nations of its parliamentarians ahead of the planned long march. What was clear was that it wasn’t going to happen. ‘The party’s leadership made that clear on a num- ber of occasions since the PDM’s formation. The reborn PPP will not rock the boat. It feels it has sacrificed enough for the cause of democracy. It was someone else’s turn to fight while it enjoyed the fruits of a deal or ‘dheel” as some observers say. ‘One would have thought the final battle when- ever that happened would have been decided in central Punjab with Nawaz Sharif’s October 2019 Gujranwala narrative delivering the required street support and any deficit being made up by the JULF’s cadres. Enter Shehbaz Sharif. Released on bail in his own words from “a day less than seven months” of impris- onment. Looks like he enjoys his freedom too and resembles the PML-N leader who kept 50,000 plus Scanned with CamScHowever, in the unlikely event you don’t know, don’t expect me to tell you. I am unashamedly meek; lack the spine some of my journalist friends have displayed. They did so, knowing well the likely consequences: hardship on themselves and their dependants by being forced out of their jobs. Ican’t really afford to be jobless. Or, to be more accurate in my case, column-less. This column affords me an opportunity to struggle, to breathe in a suffocating environment. Please don’t hate me for being truthful, it also enables me to pay some of my bills. This is also very important. ‘Yes, important in times such as these when many journalists — who are resistant to foisted authori- tarianism cloaked as patriotism and still believe the will of the people ought to be supreme — are often found wishing they knew how to update the database of the ‘tifafa’ givers/senders. What else would explain the case of the missing Iifafa (envelopes bulging with cash), apart from the missing current address of the recipient? Surely, hybrid-sponsored social media activists seem to know, are able to count and make public each such instance complete with the beneficiary's name. The ‘beneficiary’ thus becomes a two-time loser. First they face the slur of being on the take of an individual, party or a foreign power(s) hostile to Pakistan, when they speak up for the rights of their own shirtless compatriots, the voiceless and then the ‘fafa’ too gets lost en route to them. Not only the transgressors but the ‘opposition’ political parties too will be judged brutally by history. Nero playing his flute while Rome burned. Each will have to carry the cross of their own ‘brand’ of journalism on their backs whenever history is wri ten or narrated. Rest assured it will be. It always is. Also, rest assured, not only the transgressors but the ‘opposition’ political parties too will be judged brutally by history. For their compromises, the foremost of which is to accept as a given the ascend- ancy of a power that ought not to have a role in a constitutional democracy. ‘Many are disappointed at the way the PPP has conducted its politics. The truth is the PPP now appears reconciled to ruling Sindh and Sindh alone well into the foreseeable future and thus its ambi- tions are informed by that reality. It has Sindh. Why should it let someone else proclaim ‘I have Sinned’ and imperil the freedom of top leaders Asif Zardari and Feryal Talpur? If there was any doubt the PPP was placing expediency above all else it disappeared in the manner of its candidate’s notifi- cation as the leader of the opposition in the Senate. JULF’s cadres. Enter Shehbaz Sharif. Released on bail in his own ‘words from “a day less than seven months” of impris- onment. Looks like he enjoys his freedom too and resembles the PML-N leader who kept 50,000 plus supporters well away from the airport in Lahore. He did not wish for a confrontation that would pit PML-N supporters against the state when his brother and niece were arrested on arrival ahead of the 2018 elections and sent off to prison. They'd been convicted on patently spurious charges. Some said he did this for a greater cause: he’d been prom- ised Punjab after the polls. ‘That was not to be. But his faith is undiminished. He says he eschews confrontation because the country can’t afford it. Agreed. He dreams of anew social contract with free, fair elections post-elec- toral reforms, where all institutions remain within their constitutional ambit, the judiciary is inde- pendent and free from all influences and the popu- lar will prevails. ‘With not a word about his proposals from the key arbiters, or even a clue who will be the guarantor of such an arrangement, he has either fallen for what the (currently) ‘good cop” has whispered in his ear or prefers to be the modern-day male reincarnation of Alice in Wonderland. = The writer is a former editor of Dawn. abbas.nasir@hotm: Scanned with CamSc=~ Unfulfilled mandate THE Charter of the United Nations was drafted and approved in 1945. Its stated objectives are to prevent war, forced occupa- tion, and promote global justice. This vision is beautifully captured in a sculpture in the court of the UN building which consists of a pistol whose muzzle has been tied in a knot. However, the UN has not been able to ful- fil its mandate. Since its creation war, fam- ine, illegal occupation, and inequity between nations and classes have increased. This failure of the UN is built into its structure. Five members of the Security Council can, and have consistently, vetoed resolu- tions against injustice, occupation, and war. ‘These five nations are the richest and/or most powerful nations on earth. All five of them are also major manufacturers of small and large arms and all of them are exporters in the global market. The purchasers of these arms are by and large countries that suppress their people, like Saudi Arabia, or seek to impose their will on the region in which they exist, like India. When not directly involved, they develop proxies to destabilise the region. The guns and ammu- nition manufactured by these powers have been used in Yemen, Syria, Libya, various regions in Africa, and, for the last 40 years, in Afghanistan. They have killed women and children indiscriminately and justified itas collateral damage. They have been used to take away Palestinian land and give it to Israel through massive military aid of $18 billion yearly that they provide to the Zionist state. In addition, it has been well established that some of these countries smuggle arms to warring factions in their zones of infiu- ence through a network of contractors (60 per cent of this trade is from the US and 25pe from Europe). Global spending on the manu- facture of arms is $3 trillion of which 39pc is, America’s share. China’s share is 13pc and UK, France, and Russia, collectively, add up to 8.8pc. This also shows the imbalance in power within the Security Council. Thirty-seven per cent of all arms export is from the US, 20pc from Russia, and 16.7pe from the other members of the Security Council. Meanwhile, Israel is also becoming a major manufacturer of arms and its exports between 2016 and 2020 increased by 59pc. This has major implications for the Middle East. The big importers of arms, on the other hand, are Saudi Arabia (11pc), India (9.5pe), Egypt (5.8pc), UAE (3pe), and Pakistan (2.7pc). ‘These figures give us some idea of the interests the members of the Security Council have in promoting a state of war. Their economies are heavily dependent on arms production and sale and this has expanded phenomenally from $95bn in 2017 to $3tr in 2020. ‘The figures also point to the fact that the UNisalll but dead and survives only because ithas become a part of the larger global sys- tem to maintain the present status quo of which a proliferating arms economy is an integral part. The UN employs 37,000 permanent staff and has an annual budget of $3.231bn (2021 figure). This does not include its special pro- grammes like peacekeeping (last year’s budget for peacekeeping was $6.58bn) or projects related to famine relief. Much of this expense is provided by the five powers. For instance, the US contribution to UN expenses is 22pc of the UN’s total budget. To add insult to injury, these five powers and their allies are collectively known as the ‘international community’. ‘The UN has a close working relationship with international (IFT) whose political and economic agendas, such as neoliberalism and global trade trea- ties, it promotes despite being discretely ————— critical of them at times. Enough has been written about The failure of the UN is these organisations, “ws A i ‘the of built into its Pakistan as well, to structure. show that they are not interested in development but in creating dependence and pushing their loans. The World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and DFID combined employ 23,857 full-time staff and have a combined budget of $5.4bn. In addition, both the UN and these agencies support thousands of NGOs and consultants in devel- oping data, evaluating programmes, and implementing small and medium projects that serve the various programmes that they promote. This huge bank of human resources, the power it creates, and the interests it generates, collectively manage to prevent the UN from dying formally. They are happy to keep it on a ventilator so that, they can also survive. There is a need for a global network of organisations and individuals to be created, nurtured, and formalised to push for UN reform or/and to non-violently agitate collec- tively against injustice to prevent the con- solidation of an anti-poor status quo. If this does not take place, there will be many more Palestines, leading to global anarchy, and we will watch helplessly. m The writer is an architect, urban planner, and social activist. arithasan37@gmail.com www.arithasan.org ovate wir camSc financial institutions |= Imperial losers AS everyone knows, late 2001, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, was a different time: it’ hard to forget Newsweek proudly running ‘Time to think about torture’. It’s harder still to forget the Bush administration’s counter- terror chief saying, “When thisis all over, the bad guys are going to have flies walking across their eyeballs.” It was the dawn of the forever wars back then, and the bloodlust was bipartisan. Per the excellent Pankaj Mishra, liberals rushed ahead of neocons as they “recommended war and condoned torture while advancing America’s mission to bring democracy to the world’s benighted”. ‘Not that democracy fared any better, used asa gold star for whatever suited the imperial consensus at the time: democrats that made the cut would include sectarian militias (Iraq), narco-states (Karzai’s Afghanistan), and even the commando president, Pervez Musharraf. ‘Magically excluded, of course, were Pax ‘Americana’s elected enemies — from Hamas in Gaza to the Brotherhood in Egypt. We also learned that, whatever our own rugged ideas of war, the invisible hand of capital soon followed. As one conservative author wrote, it was time fora new American empire whose “grace notes are free markets, human rights and democracy, enforced by the most awesome military power the world has ever known”. ‘Thus Dick Cheney's Haliburton Company started tunnelling deep into Iraq’s oilfields, and highly paid private mercenaries started killing kids in Baghdad, In many ways, it was the oldest scam in the world: the Rome of the day, motivated by equal parts greed and revenge, leading a mis- sion to civilise. That mission, the exact result Osama bin Laden sought when he sent two planes crashing into the Twin Towers, is just now winding down. It leaves behind a million dead in Iraq, scores of thousands dead in Afghanistan, and aPakistan changed forever —with plenty les- sons to be learnt. The first is that military rule, being shorn of legitimacy at home, is more likely to press itself into the service of foreign powers abroad. Gen Musharraf's rentier regime opened up airbases, waved in drones, and col- lected bounties for the citizens it handed over to Bush's black sites. Doubtless, there can be little sympathy for Al Qaeda affiliates — only, so many weren't. Saifullah Paracha has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for 17 years. He has never been charged with a crime. Nor, for that matter, have our countless missing persons, a practice perfected by the ‘Musharraf regime, and one that endures today. That's the second lesson: of the million and one paths this country took to contain terror — anti-terrorism courts, military courts, model courts - missing persons can never be one of them. It can only ever be a crisis of conscience. The third lesson is to be wary of empire's Jocal dupes. A tiny elite, overrepresented in our policy and press, brought out the Beltway bongos. We were told a CIA thug like Raymond Davis was a career diplomat. We were told drones were the last line of defence, even as Petraeus’s aide admitted to Congress that they killed 50 Pakistani civilians per senior militant. ‘We were told occupation next door, per a recent piece via Brookings, would “maintain the gains made in women’s rights”, even as one in three female soldiers were raped by their male colleagues in the US military. On and on it went —a rain dance for more and more foreign intervention, until the entire project failed and fell over. ‘The fourth lesson concerns the other end of the spectrum: rightwing apologias. Whatever the sins of empire, existential threats to this country were externalised. We were treated ——— wall kinds of voi- The mission Saran ins > mis wasn’t our war. to civilise minster aflered leaves behind themilitantsoffice space; our current plenty of leader of the oppo- lessons to be sition kindly requested the bad learnt. men to leave Punjab alone. But the TTP was gifted Swat with ribbons and bows. Their response to peace was flog- gings and beheadings, and then reaching for Buner. In the end, ‘our war versus their war’ proved false premise: whether it was ours or someone else’s, the war was here now, and it had no intention of leaving. Its also why ‘Aitzaz Hasan and Bilal Omer and Tahira Qazi and Safwat Ghayur lost their lives trying to save our own. Breathing somewhat easier now, this coun- try must never find itself in that inferno again. The Fata-KP merger was a step for ward, yet even this awaits full implementa- tion. ‘The drop in terror attacks is huge, but the factors that enabled Fazlullah’s brutal rise —a broken justice system, weak service delivery, and economic impoverishment — remain. The time to fix them is now. ‘Twenty years later, Pakistan must have clarity: that when it comes to militancy, mili- tary rule, and the imperial agenda today, there is little to be gained, and so much more to be lost. The writer is a banister. ocarmeu wir CamSc