A SNOWBALLING crisis, with dozens of Sindh police personnel applying en masse for leave on account of the humiliation they alleged was meted out to their IG early Tuesday morning, has been averted. But make no mistake; this is a temporary reprieve.
IG Sindh Mushtaq Mahar has deferred his leave and ordered his officers to do the same for 10 days. That the deferment is not open-ended is indicative of the police leadership’s expectation that the inquiry into the incident ordered by army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, which they have welcomed wholeheartedly, will be completed within such time.
The Sindh police is angry, and understandably so. Earlier, perhaps given the ‘sensitivities’ involved, there was not much clarity from official quarters as to what had actually transpired in the hours before retired Capt Mohammed Safdar’s arrest in Karachi.
However, PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s press conference later in the day made it fairly apparent that Sindh’s top cop had at 2am found his house laid siege to by the Rangers, after which he was brought to a sector commander’s office and made to sign orders authorising the PML-N leader’s arrest. The intention was obviously to engineer a schism within the PDM opposition alliance. In other words, a federal paramilitary force was used illegally, for political ends, to abduct the head of the province’s principal law-enforcement agency.
The action reinforces the growing crescendo of voices echoing the claim, most recently made by Nawaz Sharif, that there is ‘a state within the state’ of Pakistan. Indeed, the Sindh Rangers, which technically report to the interior ministry, often operate as though the laws of the land do not apply to them. They have in many instances violated the right to due process by disappearing people, several of whom have endured torture in custody. It is that sense of impunity — both on the part of those giving the order to compel the IG’s compliance, and those who carried it out — which created a situation precipitating an imminent institutional clash. Hubris can often lead to unintended consequences.
Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah did well to show their support for the Sindh police by visiting the IG at his residence. For a major civil law-enforcement agency to be undermined, that too in such a brazen manner, is entirely unacceptable and deserves to be roundly condemned. The inquiry promised by Gen Bajwa must be thorough, transparent, and lead to those responsible for the fiasco being shown the door. This is too serious a matter to be brushed under the carpet. Finally, it is worth considering that political interference in the workings of the police is also a sign of disrespect towards these law-enforcement personnel. Unfortunately such meddling is on the rise across the country, and it must end.
Mountain of debt
THE power sector’s outstanding debt, known as ‘circular debt’ in common parlance, is reaching new heights as the government gropes in the dark to find a solution to a problem that is becoming untenable. A new Nepra report estimates the debt to have increased by more than a third to Rs2,150bn in the last fiscal from Rs1,600bn a year ago. Although the power-sector regulator recognises in its State of the Industry 2020 report the “contribution” of the economic impact of the Covid-19 health crisis on consumers to the increase in debt last year, it does not mince words in highlighting the real issues of poor governance and mismanagement plaguing this sector and causing the accumulation of debt over the last one decade and a half. The Nepra report acknowledges that electricity theft had increased and more people had delayed or defaulted on payment of their bills owing to financial stress during the pandemic. But at the same time, it says that the government’s policies of raising tariffs and resorting to revenue-based blackouts (on high-loss feeders) are to blame for the increased power theft and defaults, which, in turn, are adding to circular debt liabilities. Instead, it advises power-sector policymakers to improve governance of distribution companies to check theft and recover bills to reduce the losses that are feeding into the debt.
It is sad to note that political expediency has kept successive governments from fixing the long-term problems of governance and inefficient management of state-owned distribution companies to stop further accumulation of circular debt. The circular debt challenge will continue to threaten the sustainability of the power sector as well as the fiscal stability of the country unless reforms are implemented immediately. Little progress has been made so far on power-sector reforms since 1990, when the government first adopted a road map to privatise public-sector power generation, transmission and distribution firms in order to create a competitive electricity market in the country. The process could not move ahead after the formation of Nepra to regulate the sector in the late 1990s and the sale of KESC in the mid-2000s. Several attempts have been made to develop an effective competitive electricity market in the country and numerous deadlines have been breached. Turkey had started working on its power-sector reforms at almost the same time. Thirty years later, it has developed a functional competitive market while we have yet to take off.
TikTok restored
PAKISTAN’S 20 million-strong TikTok community must be rejoicing over the government’s recent decision to lift the ban on the video-sharing app. The Chinese government too welcomed the move, stating that companies operating from the country must abide by the laws, customs and religious values of host nations. But although the ban has been revoked, Pakistan’s image may have suffered a blow. The arbitrary decision taken by the PTA to ban the app for having “immoral” and “obscene” content exposed the authorities’ lack of understanding of the digital economy and the virtual world. This is ironic considering that the tech-savvy PTI governing team attaches high priority to the goal of a Digital Pakistan. Such bans will make it difficult to convince competent professionals to come to Pakistan and work on the Digital Pakistan project. It might have also scared away potential investors who were interested in Pakistan’s relatively untapped internet market.
There have also been some reports in the international media that suggest the ban might have been an attempt at muzzling criticism of government policies by TikTokers. The PTA chairman while briefing a Senate committee last week revealed that TikTok blocked about 4m videos and 25,000 Pakistan-based accounts over the past three months. One wonders, however, under what criteria these accounts were shut down, especially since TikTok is a way of expressing creative musings. Though the PTA has now restored Pakistan’s third most popular app — after Facebook and Twitter — it has done so on the condition that the platform will not allow “vulgar” or “indecent content” to be shared. Instead of adopting the isolationist approach of banning information and differing points of view, perhaps the PTA can work with content creators to disseminate awareness messages about the second wave of Covid-19 and to debunk conspiracy theories about the polio vaccine. TikTok has proven to be an equaliser for Pakistanis in the virtual world, and it can be utilised in a positive way, instead of being subjected to obsessive screening for supposed vulgarity.
