Reacting to charges of corruption
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has dismissed the chairman of the Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation and asked the interior ministry to probe the charges of corruption made against him in the media. Since the “scandals” aired on the media related also to the PIA and the Pakistan Trading Corporation, he has asked the Auditor General to start investigating his government’s years in power and set aside the investigations focusing on the misdeeds of 15 years ago.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has dismissed the chairman of the Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation and asked the interior ministry to probe the charges of corruption made against him in the media. Since the “scandals” aired on the media related also to the PIA and the Pakistan Trading Corporation, he has asked the Auditor General to start investigating his government’s years in power and set aside the investigations focusing on the misdeeds of 15 years ago.
The Steel Mill has been making losses after the tapering off of the international boom triggered by high growth rates in China and India. The Supreme Court quashed its privatisation but the period of boom soon came to an end and the demand for steel went down.
Now the Mill is making losses of approximately two billion rupees a month. No one can honestly say that there is no corruption in a state-owned corporation. But no one can also claim that after sacking its chairman, the steel mill will take off once again. In fact, it is a universal fact that corporations run by the state and prevented from being privatised by courts will go bankrupt sooner or later.
If the interior ministry in fact unearths hanky-panky in the Steel Mill, then the PPP will have to take the rap. It is in this light that the step taken by Mr Gilani should be welcomed. He has set on foot a process that will either doom his government as one that runs on favouritism or will encourage the media that is gunning for his government.
There is no dearth of incompetence, however. The sugar crisis in the country has been mishandled. The bureaucrats reacted stupidly to TV reports and advised raids on the sugar mills. The sector was described as the monopoly of the powerful politicians. After the raids, the government was forced to retreat and say the sugar mills were not to blame. The media had misled the government. And the sugar crisis continues. Let’s hope the Steel Mill probe doesn’t end the same way. (Daily Times)
4 comments:
ISI-sponsored journalists:
This was compiled when Dr Shahid Masood was Islamic Socialist Political Activist Type of TV Anchor in ARY ONE [now in 2008 he was Advisor to the PM of Pakistan] when General Musharraf's popularity was at its peak. Please keep in mind the time of those days.
Calamity of Dr Shahid Masood & TV Anchors - 1
http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/11/calamity-of-dr-shahid-masood-tv-anchors.html
Calamity of Dr Shahid Masood & TV Anchors - 2
http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/11/calamity-of-dr-shahid-masood-tv-anchors_07.html
Excellent 'IQ' of Dr Shahid Masood of GEO TV.
http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2009/01/excellent-iq-of-dr-shahid-masood-of-geo.html
ISI-sponsored journalists:
Kamran Khan, Mohammad Malick, The News, GEO TV & Corruption in Print Media.
http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2009/08/kamran-khan-mohammad-malick-news-geo-tv.html
ISI-sponsored journalists:
Kamran Khan, Rauf Klasra, The News, GEO TV & Plots.
http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2009/08/kamran-khan-rauf-klasra-news-geo-tv.html
Mr. Ansar Abbasi, The News, GEO TV and Plots.
http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2009/07/mr-ansar-abbasi-news-geo-tv-and-plots.html
The judicial option? NRO or no NRO, the fact is Zardari hasn’t been convicted of anything yet and as president has immunity in fresh criminal cases. So hoping though as many people are that CJ Iftikhar and his band of non-PCO judges will act, the judges’ gavels are sheathed for now. Perhaps later, once Zardari is out of his office, they will get their chance — but that doesn’t really help the minus-one brigade right now.
The PPP? Perhaps, some hope, PM Gilani and the ‘real’ PPP will realise the folly of their ways and will ‘reclaim’ the party, egged on by a friendly opposition and the generals. An internal coup of sorts. But PPP 3.0 — Zardari’s PPP — shows no sign of those strains, despite the best attempts to drum up talk of internal dissent.
Gilani may not be the happiest guy in the world, overshadowed and made irrelevant as he is by his all-powerful boss, but that is beside the point. He was picked to be prime minister not because he’d happily acquiesce in his reputation being ground into the dust but because his pain threshold is high.
In this place of selectively short memories, the Gilani-as-saviour theory conveniently ignores the ‘who will be PM?’ debate after the February 2008 elections. Remember when Makhdoom Amin Fahim was dumped and Ahmed Mukhtar and Shah Mehmood Qureshi and sundry other candidates were bypassed? Gilani was picked for his ability to play second fiddle with equanimity, and 18 months later he’s unlikely to have undergone a sudden character transformation.
Could parliament impeach Zardari? A glance at Article 47 of the constitution should be enough to discard this theory. First, a majority in either the National Assembly or the Senate must submit a written notice of its intention to seek Zardari’s removal. Then, a two-thirds majority in a joint-parliamentary session must vote to impeach him. It ain’t happening.
Ah, but what about the backroom option? What about the generals? What about creating an atmosphere of crisis by, say, trotting out epic tales of alleged new corruption and throwing mud at Zardari’s inner circle? What about the Americans, whose fickle love for Pakistani democracy may cause them to cut Zardari loose if he becomes more a political liability than a useful ally?
The backroom option draws its strength from the perception that, outside Zardari’s inner circle, there appear to be two types of people in Pakistan. Those who regard Zardari with derision and want him out. And those who regard him with derision but worry about the consequences of removing, or trying to remove, him.
So drag the man into the mire of allegations and rumour-facts and perhaps the latter group will give up worrying about the system and acquiesce in bringing to an end a hideous chapter in the country’s tawdry political history. It is a clever strategy, but this cloak-and-dagger stuff suffers from a flaw at the moment — by luck or by design, Zardari is steering a ship that is creaking, yes, but it is also inching out of the roughest waters of the recent past.
The macroeconomic indicators have stabilised; inflation is down; the power crisis will ease now that summer is over; suicide bombings are down; a degree of normality is returning to Swat; Baitullah Mehsud is dead and his headquarters in South Waziristan is under siege; the judicial crisis is over; a truce, albeit an uneasy one, is holding in Punjab; the American demands to ‘do more’ against the Taliban are muted; drone strikes are less of a political hot potato; relations with India are edging towards a post-Mumbai phase; parliament is upping its legislative activity — it’s not quite singing-in-the-rain happy, but neither is it the nightmare that was Pakistan in 2007 and 2008.
Combine Zardari’s impregnable constitutional position with the cautiously optimistic outlook that the facts warrant, and it makes for a formidable argument against the minus-one brigade. (Dawn)
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