“Corruption” is a dirty word. Mr Mustafa Khar understands that, thank God, but does anyone else? Time was when people believed the previous PML(N) government to be the most corrupt one in Pakistani history. Now we’re regaled with stories of corruption in Islamabad which leave us speechless.
When the prime minister is confronted with this charge, she gets very angry. “Give me the evidence”, she retorts, “and I’ll roll some heads”. When we can’t give Ms Bhutto the sort of iron-clad proof she demands (because it’s difficult, if not impossible, to find such evidence, as the PM knows from her own experience in trying to convict Mian Nawaz Sharif & Associates), she is quick to explain that “it’s all a conspiracy to weaken me by unfairly targeting key members of my team”.
We find this response unsatisfactory. Not because we’re sloppy liberals who dream of a fairy-tale world without any corruption but because we’re genuinely alarmed. A small commission here or there, an insignificant indiscretion or two, these could be excused by the PM as part of the price we pay for representative democracy (after all, people who spend so much money to get elected are entitled to recoup their investment, aren’t they?). But Ms Bhutto must draw the line somewhere.
The Privatisation Commission, which is engaged in selling off the country’s financial institutions and infrastructure, is a case in point. Since 1991, the PC has privatised about 100 manufacturing units and two banks in the public sector worth about Rs 10 billion. This is peanuts compared to the hundreds of billions of rupees worth of public assets which are now ready to be sold off. The PC’s current portfolio includes over a dozen financial institutions, several power plants and distribution companies, PTC, oil and gas fields and a chunk of Pakistan Railways. If the PC does a good job of exploiting this gold mine, Pakistan has a real chance of taking off into self-sustained growth. But if the PC screws it up, this country will be unforgivably stranded up the creek without a paddle.
Last year, TFT called the chairman of the PC, Mr Naved Qamar, “a clean man”. Now we’re not so sure. Ms Bhutto therefore needs to ask him a number of questions immediately. Why, for example, has the secretary of the PC (Mr Jameel Bhutto, a good man, by all accounts) been fired? The bonafides of a number of crucially placed consultants to the PC, one of whom is said to be related to a senior federal minister while another is an old chum of Mr Naved Qamar, also need to be checked out.
More important, Ms Bhutto should ask Mr Qamar a host of questions relating to the appointment of various foreign financial consultants to the PC for the purposes of finding strategic investors for the big public units on sale. Why, for example, is the PPP MPA with the highest bid on Rohri Cement being unofficially asked to withdraw his bid so that the project can go to the second highest bidder? Was a proper evaluation of bids undertaken when the foreign financial consultant to UBL was chosen or did someone thrust his choice on the PC? Was the contract with the foreign consultant for the privatisation of Kot Addu properly negotiated? If so, why did the PC feel it necessary to hire other consultants for advice on legal and engineering issues? The PM should also keep an eye out on what is happening about the privatisation of KESC and Faisalabad Electric Supply Company.
The PM’s attention is drawn especially to the case of Pakistan’s flagship — PTC. It was imperative that the PC should have negotiated terms with the foreign consultant with the greatest international experience in privatising telecommunication companies. Why hasn’t the PC done this? In fact, isn’t it true that the bid from the financial consultant selected was not the lowest in view of the small print in the original offer? If renegotiation was subsequently required with this consultant, why didn’t the PC renegotiate terms with the other consultants originally shortlisted?
Apart from the PC, Ms Bhutto should make enquiries from those who have recently negotiated a deal to export quality Pakistani rice to a European company at considerably below market rates. Similarly, eyebrows are being raised in certain quarters at the goings on in the ministry of water and power regarding unsavoury deals over the privatisation of transmission lines. Nor has the Sindh chief minister’s overnight dash to Paris recently (to personally negotiate a Rs 2 billion deal for the purchase of “security camera equipment” for Karachi) escaped attention. Finally, the PM should ask the minister of state for finance and the president of the National Bank of Pakistan why they were so keen to allow the NIT to disinvest in choice shares privately when share prices are expected to rise substantially after privatisation of certain public sector units.
The PM should gear up her minions for a public debate on these issues. In the meanwhile, Senator Khurshid Ahmad has his job cut out for him. A Senate Committee to peruse the PC’s record is urgently required.