Re: Pakistan police finally make a big arrest…
I don’t trust this regime with anything at all. Take example of BB. She was killed in front of the tv cameras, and still we don’t know how she was killed and who killed her. We know that govt came up 3 diff stories and stuck to the one that was least believable. In any case, read this.
Credibility and information
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Ayesha Haroon
Here was a government that had everything going for it. Washington was in a beneficent mood, Paris Club had rescheduled the loans, billions in military aid were pouring in, stock markets were zinging upwards despite unexplained crashes, the president was feted by Bush, the ex-Citi Bank prime minister knew heads of all international funds, first generation reforms were taking place, second generation reforms were being talked about…
Barely a few weeks into the caretaker setup, after the Aziz government completed its five uninterrupted years in power, a countrywide flour crisis hit the nation, as did an unprecedented power crisis, other than the sundry ghee and sugar shortages. Food inflation is at its highest in a long time. And all this when the party that had voted in Shaukat Aziz as its prime minister, was going into the general elections amid slogans of landslide victory. So what went wrong? More importantly, why is it that few believe the reasons that government functionaries are offering for the ongoing crises?
Unfortunate and damaging events, such as Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and the horrible routine of bomb blasts across the country, need a cohesive and unified response if we are to bring peace and tranquillity to our nation. Yet, even when everyone is unified in grief and anger, there are a hundred versions offered for each blast–and the one version people have largely stopped accepting is that of the government.
The lack of credibility permeates all aspects of governance. The economic figures, offered by the last government, are not accepted as genuine by any independent economist in the country or outside. In fact the Statistics Bureau–which has historically done remarkable work despite little funding–has become somewhat of a bad joke. The multilaterals operating in the country have been conducting their own surveys for some time; and while for political reasons they have willingly co-opted with the government and used weak data, for their internal discussions and assessments they always use their own survey results so that they are not fed wrong information that the government is happily feeding its people.
The issue of credibility is a very serious one. The issue of lack of credibility is an even more serious matter. For nothing can be run, no policy can be satisfactorily framed and adequately implemented, and no government system can function without credibility–indeed, no hope or vision for a better tomorrow can be shared if people are not willing to trust the government.
It’s a simple matter. An XYZ government comes in through a free and fair election. The people’s representatives know there are going to be strict policies made and measures taken to uplift all sectors of the public; the people know that their representatives truly represent them and know their needs and share their dreams, so they will willingly accept the policies and live through the tough times.
A non-representative government, by its very definition, is not representative of the people–hence it will be controlled by vested interests and lobbies for their own benefit–and will find it very hard to get ordinary people to ‘accept’ and support its policies. Perhaps that is one reason why despite a horrendous blasts- and killings-filled 2007, Islamabad keeps complaining that the people are still not accepting that the war on terror is their war and not just that of the US.
A question that is regularly asked during debates on the Capital Hill is that how come Pakistanis who are forced to live the horror of bomb blasts continue to doubt the war on terror as being a war fought for their benefit. Ironically it is a question asked by many who have been supportive of a non-representative setup in the country.
The impression one got from the Aziz government was that how it ran the government was its own business and no one else’s. It could be answerable to its western friends but certainly not the opposition and most obviously not to the public. Interestingly, as the history of legislative debate in the Aziz government shows, policies were hardly the business of even the treasury benches. A kitchen cabinet, comprising a few eager-to-please first-timers, some statistics-manipulating bureaucrats, and a handful of big private sector players was all that was needed for structuring policy.
Run like a boy’s club, secrecy and closed door discussions became the norm. The many stock market crashes and their subsequent inquiries and little action on them show that the colluding powers used secrecy to protect a scam. A pattern emerges if the last five years are looked at carefully. Information was controlled, misleading information was given and plain statistical lies were offered by the government. According to some Islamabad insiders, the statistical manipulations were done not as much for the people as for keeping bad news from reaching the presidency.
By standing principles on their head, by justifying killings in the name of ‘pre-emptive’ justice and by making jingoistic appeals to nationalism, simple governance values and systems are ruined. The entire governance structure of a country, if based on the values laid down in its constitution, is focused on protecting the national interest and benefiting the public. There is no need to say ‘Pakistan first’. Simply, by carrying out its surveys diligently and not manipulating the results at the behest of the parent ministry, the statistics department would have better served the interests of the nation and its people.
When misinformation is offered as truth, it leads to unpleasant surprises, such as the flour crisis we are all grappling with.
The writer is editor The News, Lahore. Email: [email protected]