Happy Birthday Mr President

This week, President Musharraf celebrated his 62nd birthday going by the date of birth given on his official website. Birthdays are happy occasions as well as time for reflection and this is a good time as any to see what has been achieved in terms of what was promised when the president took power.

On October 17, 1999, five days after taking over, General Musharraf who was then the Chief Executive gave a preamble to his government’s future performance. In his speech to the nation he pointed out some aims and objectives. These need to be highlighted to understand where Pakistan stands in terms of the goals the President set for himself and for the country.

The first point on this agenda was to rebuild national confidence and morale as well as strengthen the federation, remove inter-provincial disharmony and restore national cohesion. On this, the government has a mixed score. While one cannot put a measure on national confidence and morale, it seems from the buntings and banners for independence day that the feeling is still positive. People continue to believe in Pakistan and their confidence in the country seems as positive as it was when the General took over.

However, there still are some sticking points that sour the feeling of national cohesion and the strengthening of the federation. For one, there is the NFC award, which continues to defy settlement. In this, Mr Shaukat Aziz seems to have spent a considerable amount of time to come to some conclusion. Despite the give and take between provinces and the initiatives taken by the President, the on ground reality is that with regards to the NFC award, we are still standing at square one.

Another issue that hurts inter-provincial harmony is the manner in which the Kalabagh dam is being bulldozed through despite the reservations of smaller provinces. Water continues to be a contentious issue, and the matter of water division has only got a respite because of the flood situation in the country. However, no headway has been made on a revised water accord and nothing has been done on building water reservoirs and other alternates to Kalabagh. For national unity, the wishes of all the provinces will have to be accommodated.

The second point of General Musharraf’s agenda was to revive the economy and restore investor confidence. In this, much has been done. While some say that much of the credit for this goes to the changed international scenario after September 11, to be fair to the government some of the steps taken also played a part in making things better. State Bank Governor Dr Ishrat Husain, for example, will always be remembered for his role in the banking and financial sector reforms that helped clean up a rather murky area.

At the same time, a rise in foreign inflows, after the US took a much more sympathetic view of Pakistan’s financial situation following September 11, did change the country’s fortunes overnight. Pakistanis abroad, especially those based in the West, started sending remittances through official channels and funding from both international financial institutions and donor agencies suddenly jumped.

While exports have also registered an impressive rise, imports too have jumped considerably. More recently, the government has also encouraged the import of essential items in a bid to keep local prices of these commodities down. While this may be a good idea in the short term, we cannot turn Pakistan into a net importer of these items.

This brings one to the issue of inflation. Many perplexed people have asked that if the economy is doing so well as the government claims it is, why are prices going up all the time? Without getting into the economics of this, it cannot be overemphasized that the problem area for the Musharraf government remains rising inflation and poverty. On this, the scorecard has been poor.

Two other targets that the government has not met are ensuring law and order and speedy justice. On this again, the law and order situation, partially through no fault of the government, has worsened over the years. Sectarian violence, acts of terror and crime have increased considerably over the past few years, again a source of worry and concern. The justice system remains clogged with more under trial prisoners than convicts at most of our jails. Jails are overflowing not because there are so many criminals in the country but because people’s trials continue for agonizingly long periods of time through no fault of their own. In some instances, the sentences finally awarded to prisoners are shorter than the time they have already spent in the trial process.

"Further disappointment comes from the promise to ensure swift and across the board accountability and to depoliticise state institutions. Accountability in Pakistan has become a redundant word and is now translated into settling of political scores.

Today, we have people sitting in the federal and provincial cabinets on whom huge clouds of doubt were cast when the Musharraf government took power. Key institutions and individuals have been taken out of the ambit of accountability. However, the military run National Accountability Bureau continues to justify its existence.

State institutions also continue to be politicised and their performance is affected as a result. The government insists on selling public sector organisations but ironically, or maybe not, it is the politicised and loss-making corporations that are not getting sold.

Finally, General Musharraf had promised devolution of power to the grass root level. In this, the holding of local bodies elections can be seen as a testament to this promise. Again, however, there are many holes in the manner the elections are being conducted especially in Sindh, where the playing field is neither fair nor free.

In such a scenario, one can only hope for betterment in the state of affairs of the country. With such a mixed score card it is now up to the government to concentrate once again on the key issues that were outlined about six years back. The more things change, the more they stay the same. A lot has happened between 1999 and 2005 but this has not changed the issues that were outlined then - they still prove to be challenges for the government even today.