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These columns have been copied from Dawn and pasted here with annotations for the ease of the students of Nova CSS Academy.
Column 1
Dealing with child abuse
I. A. Rehman
THE abduction, rape and murder of eight-year-old Zainab in Kasur in January 2018 shook the entire nation out of its complacency [تساہل] in such cases. But hopes of a decline in child abuse, even after the hanging of the culprit seven months later, have not been realised.
The figure of 3,445 children who were sexually abused in 2017 has often been mentioned as an annual estimate. A chilling case recently reported involved 10-year-old Farishta. It exposed, in addition to a sex fiend’s[شیطان] brutality, the customary cupidity [لالچ]of the police. This only means that protection of children against sexual abuse, even if they are not killed, must remain high on the national agenda.
The federal government responded with a bill in the National Assembly, The Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Bill, to create an agency to deal with cases of missing children. The Assembly returned the bill to the mover on grounds of its vagueness. There is now a revised version. Vagueness apart, this bill was an extremely shoddy[گھٹیا درجے سے لکھی تحریر] draft. The authors had taken incredible liberties with the English language and preferred verbosity to brevity.
Take the sentence “It is essential to legislate for an institutional response at the level of such areas in the federation as are not included in any province”. It could have been replaced with ‘It is necessary to provide for an institutional response in the federal territory’.
The seriousness of the matter demands that the government take whatever help it can from CSOs.
Besides, the bill is a hodgepodge [چوں چوں کا مربہ] of provisions only some of which could be part of the law, while many others should be in the rules. The penalty under sections 361-A and 369 of the Penal Code has been increased with the addition of hefty [زیادہ] amounts in fine. An annexure lists 49 bits of information about the missing child to be gathered by the organisation. The table would have a better place in the rules because placing it within the law precludes[خطرے سے باہر رکھنا] the collection of information not included in it. It should have been put in the rules with the addition of a line ‘And any other information that may be considered necessary’.
Besides, opinion is divided on whether the bill and the agency to be created under it should be named after a victim, because it involves perpetuating the memory of one among the many equally wronged children.
The proposed law and the agency created under it are to be administered by the ‘National Commission on the Rights of the Child’. Where is this commission? If the reference is to the cell in the secretariat of the Wafaqi Mohtasib, that cell, despite the presence of a few dedicated persons, does not have the human and financial resources the task requires.
The seriousness of the matter demands that the government take whatever help it can from civil society organisations [Grammar]۔ While some of them are monitoring incidents of children’s abduction, rape and murder, we need more investigative studies such as Accountability for Rape: A Case Study of Lodhran, carried out by the University College, Lahore.
Statistics attached to the study show that the police submitted reports on 7,120 rape cases under Section 376 of the Penal Code in Punjab during 2016 and 2017. The number of cases decided was 5,814 and the number of convictions a mere 216 (3.7 per cent only). The districts that reported the highest number of rape incidents (and a poor conviction rate) are: Lahore, where 191 cases out of 418 were decided with three convictions; Rahim Yar Khan, 393 cases, with 370 decided and eight convictions; Bahawalpur, 355 cases with 286 decided and eight convictions; Khanewal, 355 cases, with 243 decided and nine convictions; Lodhran, 310 cases, with 252 decided and 16 convictions; and Faisalabad, 305 cases, with 330* decided and 14 convictions.
The districts reporting the lowest incidence are: Jhelum, 19 cases, with 32* decided and one conviction; Mianwali, 23 cases, with 27* decided and two convictions; Attock, 23 cases, with 36* decided and three convictions; Chakwal, 36 cases, with 34 decided and two convictions; Khushab, 39 cases, with 45* decided and one conviction; and Narowal, 44 cases with 46* decided and six convictions.
[ * The cases decided included some filed earlier than 2016. The total number decided over the two years was 9,154, while there were 7,120 new cases. The victims include small girls and older women, but that doesn’t matter while determining the course of the law.]
Let the experts determine the causes of variation in cases of rape in the Punjab districts. What can be noted at first sight is that the incidence of rape cases could be proportional to the degree of development in a district.
The study offers plenty of food for thought to lawmakers, police and prosecutors regarding the failure to punish rapists. It finds that in 85pc of acquittals the reason was the resiling[مکر جانا] of witnesses. After a brief review of laws applicable to rape cases, the study points out the causes of the poor conviction rate: a rape case takes on average 560 days to decide as against the stipulated period of 90 days; delayed filing of FIRs; delays in medical examination; inconsistencies in the victim’s statements; conduct of witnesses (relatives and strangers); questionable methods of medical tests; violence; cases of married women; and variations in the age of a minor. Many recommendations have been made and merit serious consideration.
New research should also cover the social factors that contribute to abduction and rape. For instance, what can be done to reduce the population of street children? Will compulsory schooling help? Can improved housing for the poor prevent them from telling their little ones to spend the day in the streets?
A key finding in most rape studies is that children are unusually vulnerable [جس کو تقصان پہنچ سکتا ہو]at schools and madressahs and many of the culprits are members of victims’ families or known to them. Stricter control of educational centres and essential sex education for children and their mothers are fundamental to strategies to protect the nation’s precious children from the most horrible cycle of abduction, rape and murder.
Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2019
Column 2
Amnesty or referendum
Khurram HusainUpdated June 27, 2019
WITH three separate televised appeals to urge people to participate, Prime Minister Imran Khan has turned his amnesty scheme into a referendum of sorts on his government’s impending tax plan for the next fiscal year.
The scheme is step one of a very aggressive revenue collection drive set to kick off in the new fiscal year on July 1, an exercise that will give us raids, accounts frozen, tax notices and blocked refunds galore بہتات once July 1 rolls around. The combined strength of the government’s finance team went on air a few days ago to urge people to declare their hidden assets and get themselves registered. They were joined by the prime minister briefly.
The government’s message is that a window of opportunity has been opened briefly to give one last chance to those who have undeclared wealth to bring it forward and enter the net. Once the window closes it will be no more Mr Nice Guy. After that, they will pursue all undeclared wealth, including at some points, threatening prosecutions and confiscation[ضبطی] of assets held as benami.
The reason this has turned into a referendum is because if the response to the appeals for the amnesty scheme is weak, the credibility of the entire tax effort to follow will be challenged at the very outset. A weak response will basically mean that people have called the government’s bluff. ‘Come and get us’ they’ll be telling the government. In that case, the government will be in a quandary[مشکل اور الجھن کا شکار]. It has a historic jump to make in tax revenues for next year, and being under an IMF programme will limit its ability to bridge shortfalls through borrowing. If people call its bluff on the whole thing, there will be few options left but to deliver on its tough rhetoric.
If the response to the appeals for the amnesty scheme is weak, the credibility of the entire tax effort to follow will be challenged at the very outset.
Unlike a proper referendum though, there is no clear ‘yes’ or ‘no’ outcome here. How does one determine whether or not an amnesty scheme has been ‘successful’? There are at least three, if not four, criteria that can be relied upon. You could look at the number of declarants (the number of people who availed the scheme’s offer), or the amount of tax revenue that was collected through the scheme, or the rupee value of the assets that were declared through the scheme, or the amount of foreign exchange that was remitted back into the country as a result of foreign asset declarations where the declarant opted to remit the funds back to Pakistan.
So what would be good numbers in this case? We could look at how the last amnesty scheme held in June and July 2018 worked out for a benchmark. That scheme began on April 10 and was supposed to run till June 30, but was extended initially till July 11, and then again July 30 on the demand of the business community. By June 10, it saw a weak response, with reports suggesting the number of declarants was in the hundreds and a few hundred million rupees worth of tax had been collected till then. The Supreme Court was examining the scheme and declarants were waiting for the court’s nod before doing anything. The court’s nod for the scheme came on June 12, after which the rate of participation picked up.
A month later, by July 11, the government released its first numbers regarding the response. More than 55,000 declarations had been made by that date, and foreign assets worth Rs577 billion (at the July exchange rate) were declared while Rs1,192bn worth of domestic assets had been declared. Rs97bn had been collected in tax, with Rs36bn of that being on foreign assets declared through the scheme. The amount of foreign exchange remitted was a mere $40 million, however. “This response to the amnesty scheme has been unprecedented” the statement issued by the interim government said. By the time the scheme ended on July 30, the number of declarants had risen to more than 80,000 and the tax collected was closer to Rs124bn.
The one month between the Supreme Court nod (given on June 12) and the data released on July 11 can be a credible benchmark for the scheme currently under way. Another benchmark could be the government’s own expectations. For example, an article published in the Khaleej Times on June 26 quotes Muhammad Ashfaq Ahmed, chief of International Taxes at the FBR, saying the government expects up to Rs1 trillion worth of foreign assets to be declared through the scheme.
Another benchmark could be the amount of tax collected under the scheme. Government ministers are at pains to say that revenue is not the purpose but one would have to be quite innocent to take that claim at face value. The government was expected to announce a revenue target from new taxes equal to somewhere around Rs700bn, but instead, the budget carries new tax proposals worth around Rs550bn. It is possible that the difference is expected to be made up by the amnesty scheme, which would suggest they are looking for revenues upwards of Rs150bn from it. Maybe because of this reason they have allowed people to declare today and pay later, so that the revenues collected through the scheme can be counted as next fiscal year’s revenues (aside from the convenience of paying later).
So if the scheme yields anything less than 55,000 declarants, and less than Rs150bn in revenue, and less than Rs1tr in foreign assets declared, there are grounds for considering that people have called the government’s bluff. The further south of these numbers the final outturn, the greater the defeat the government’s revenue plan would have suffered in this referendum. A flop in the amnesty scheme will hobble[ڈگمگا دینا] the revenue effort of PTI Reloaded at the very outset, putting it on a rough-and-tumble course in the first year of its IMF programme. Let’s hope they actually release the final data so we all have a clear picture.
The writer is a member of staff.
khurram.husain@gmail.com
Twitter: @khurramhusain
Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2019
Column 3
Educated scourge
“VIRTUE is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.” This quote by Adam Smith is very well explained when we have a look at the educated upper middle class of Pakistan. This class has harmed the country more than anybody else but knows how to stay clear of controversy and conveniently shift blames to the politicians or uneducated masses who are labelled as having no civic sense.
The British gave this country a most modern railway system back when they ruled. The rail tracks started from Karachi and went all the way up to the serpentine[winding like a snake] Khyber Pass, but this is no longer the case. The British legacy which should have been held on to has been lost and the one which should have been let go of has been embraced. The culture of government functionaries considering themselves superior to the masses and behaving as rulers has been tightly held on to by the civilians as well as the military bureaucracy.
The cantonments in well-settled cities, which were a requirement of the British Raj, have been portrayed as indispensable[very essentialناگزیر] when they could have easily been done away with as they are a burden on the national exchequer. Smokescreens such as ‘austerity measures’ or voluntarily foregoing any increase in the defence budget work a lot better with the masses (and also get the prime minister to tweet his gratitude) than any sincere steps in this regard.
This educated upper middle class gets its sense of entitlement from the training imparted to it and the tag of its profession — doctor, engineer or lawyer. If the nincompoop[احمق] politicians can enjoy such a privilege, why can’t we, they ask. After all, I scored high in the CSS exam, or I stood first in the medical college exam, or I was brilliant in my studies, or I topped the war course, and so on and so forth.
The script is the same: a promising start followed by collapse.
How do we manage to turn various government-run organisations into such huge liabilities? Because they are operated by the same class. Any department with a better salary structure or reasonable career prospects is hijacked by the educated elite (which includes politicians, the military establishment and the bureaucracy), and inductions are made left, right and centre, to the point that the burden breaks the back of the department. The majority of the budget allocation is spent on salaries and pensions of the employees. The primary function of the department is neglected. The script is almost always identical — a promising start followed by virtual collapse. A few examples would be pertinent.
It would be stating the obvious that Pakistan Railways has followed the same route. As if things were not already beyond repair, the minster has recently indicated he would have a ballot to fill vacant posts which don’t even need to be filled as most of them would end up doing chores at the Railway officers’ residences. This ballot is basically a euphemism [اچھے الفاظ کا استعمال جبکہ اصل لفظ برا تاثر دیتا ہو]for exercising influence to induct people of choice. I have a funny feeling that, if this so-called ballot goes ahead, people from Rawalpindi, the minister’s constituency, are going to get very lucky.
The Pakistan Steel Mill has become the Pakistan ‘Still’ Mill, thanks to the same approach which has resulted in no investment in infrastructure improvement and mindless inductions. PIA was one organisation which promised better pay packages and the same mafia decided to flood it with so many employees that the bulk of the budget goes towards either paying salaries or pensions, instead of being focused on infrastructure investment including the purchase of new aircraft. The Pakistan Television Corporation recently was in the news for not having the requisite infrastructure to relay the prime minister’s speech recorded in high-definition video, but the number of employees it has is enormous. The private TV channels are run better with far less employees.
Then, it is sometimes said that there are courts which are ready to shoot down any attempt at downsizing, read right-sizing, these organisations because of the same sense of entitlement the educated elite enjoys in our society.
Meanwhile, the culture of bribery is not the invention of the corrupt businessman as is often portrayed; it is the doing of the educated Pakistani. Who do you think takes the most bribe in terms of percentage — the class IV employees or the senior officers in position to make impactful decisions? Who is more educated? The educated middle class is usually an asset for society; in fact, its members are the ones a society banks on to bring about change for the better. But sadly, our education system that includes conventional education and societal learning has failed to inculcate [teach] any sense of morality in our educated class. Unless the educated ones turn the page, change will remain a pipe dream.
The writer is a former civil servant.
syedsaadatwrites@gmail.com
Twitter: @SyedSaadat52
Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2019
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