Anjum Niaz
Zardari khappay by Anjum Niaz
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Saturday, March 13, 2010
Anjum Niaz
Governor Salmaan Taseer says the whole system will implode were Asif Zardari to go. “Nawaz Sharif too will suffer collateral damage. The economy will take a nosedive because US will withdraw aid to Pakistan. Hillary Clinton told me that her biggest selling point to the US Congress was undiluted democracy in Pakistan, with the press being free and a multi-ethnic functioning parliament in place. She has told the khakis not to derail democracy, otherwise America will slap sanctions.”
The bottom line: Asif Zardari will not only complete his term but will be in the saddle until 2018! “Why should he step down?” Taseer asks me in an interview at his Islamabad home. “Some media people, you included, like to manufacture stories of his exit. He’s the head of the largest political party in Pakistan; he’s the one who spoke of ‘Pakistan khappay,’ he’s the one keeping the federation together.”
The 17th Amendment will go by the end of this month. “The president has told me himself,” says Taseer. “He has the support of his coalition partners, except the PML-N, who keep coming up with new demands.”
Asked will the president become a mere figurehead with all the powers vested in the prime minister, Taseer dismisses my question. “The 58 (2) (b) is already defunct. The president is not going to dissolve the National Assembly. As for the ‘appointments and disappointments’ (Taseer’s coinage) of judges and army chief, the president is not interested. Mr Zardari derives his power from being the head of PPP. The prime minister is never going to be more powerful than the president because he cannot move without the party and its chairman.”
Hush! There’s a tacit agreement between the two: while the president plays the bad cop, Gilani plays the good cop!
Just as Zardari’s exit is but a dream, Salmaan Taseer’s departure as Punjab governor is but a fantasy. Taseer categorically states that the Swiss cases are closed forever. So we should forget about them. As for the Sharifs’ demand that the Punjab governor should quit, he gives out a laugh.
What is most endearing about Taseer is his spirited audacity, that uncurbed usage of words which typify Taseer. Since school days (yes, one’s known him for half-a-century), ‘Billo’ as he was called because of his green eyes, gravitated in his own swagger. He has changed little since then. As a chartered accountant, he accumulated his wealth through hard work; not corruption. He drives his own car without hooters, tooters and footers. He lives in his own house, not the Governor’s House in Lahore.
Today Taseer is Zardari’s biggest acolyte. He watches over him like a hawk, preventing the Sharifs from encroaching into the PPP domain. “The president can only remove me; no one else,” says Taseer. Naturally, why would AZ move him when he has one of the loudest and most loyal spokesmen in Pakistan’s biggest province?
Taseer’s psychological warfare against the chief minister is proving unnerving not for the Sharifs but for the province.
“They ran a torture cell under the guise of an FIA investigative unit in Model Town which was recently bombed. Rogue operators like Maj (r) Mushtaq and Rana Maqbool, the former IG police, Sindh, notorious for AZ’s tongue slashing incident, and now a Grade-22 secretary prosecutions, were running a parallel intelligence outfit outside the purview of ISI and IB.”
Taseer’s nitpicking against the Sharifs is unending. “Look at the kind of people being voted into the assemblies on PML-N tickets. They belong to qabza groups, are accused of molesting women, are fraudsters and barbaric law- breakers…they are the dregs of the earth! Daily we hear their MPA or MNA featuring in the press for breaking the law.”
Isn’t Asif Ali Zardari too breaking the law, employing jailbirds, bank defaulters, outlaws, villains, NAB convicts to sensitive posts? Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Email: anjumniaz@rocketmail. com
You’re no American prez, Mr PM! by Anjum Niaz
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Anjum Niaz
The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting
Let’s first talk ‘democracy’ before we discuss the radio address by our prime minister last Friday. This morning, we are to witness the fruits of democracy as touted by our leaders when turncoats from three political parties will face each other in by-elections. All eyes are on PPP-82 (Jhang), where two feudals, Jabbowana (PPP) and Chaila (PML-N) will contest. Chaila was earlier disqualified for giving a fake BA degree, but thanks to the Dogar court which removed the graduate clause (only to benefit Zardari) and with the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba support, Chalia can again enter the Punjab Assembly.
We all are adrift as a nation. Convicts, cheats, felons, jailbirds are the government’s and opposition’s most favoured. Forget the Taliban savagery, the whole landscape is turning bloody. Had the rot been contained; had corruption by cabinet ministers been stopped; had Zardari’s wealth been returned to the treasury coffers; had the energy crisis been resolved; had the president fulfilled his promises made to the people of Pakistan; had the superior judiciary been allowed to work independently; had the PML-N been a genuine opposition party and not a shadow boxer; the daily practice to reward the criminals that we’re witnessing among the ruling party and the opposition would be a thing of the past.
Why then do we react when the masses take the law into their own hands? While they watch helplessly the powerful steal, con, swindle in broad daylight, they vent their anger on petty thieves. It doesn’t take much for a mob to build up these days. Lynching, burning and public lashing is a knee-jerk reaction. Robbers burnt to cinders; boys lashed naked until the mob’s hunger to hurt simmers. The shenanigans of our VVIPs have turned the peace-loving citizens into bloodthirsty, murderous animals.
Sitting atop the national debris and fashioning himself on the US presidents’ weekly radio address to the nation, Prime Minister Gilani rolled out his maiden speech last Friday. But while the US presidents talk direct to their people on issues they hold dear, our prime minister patted himself on the back by his self-praise on what a good job he had done the past two years.
He lives in the rarefied strata solely reserved for the VVIPs, a sort of Mount Olympus. His abode is far removed from the 180 million working stiff Pakistanis struggling to survive. Therefore, the list of achievements that Gilani tooted are in my (and almost everyone else’s) humble view the exact opposite of what he claims. Other than the state-owned PTV and APP who trumpet the prime minister’s rosy assertions on the government’s successes, the rest of the media, both print and electronic, portray a Pakistan mired in poverty, corruption, mis-governance and hopelessness. The downhill slide seems unstoppable, no matter what Gilani may say. Better it would have been for the prime minister to temper his speech with sound bytes laced with reality and truth. But unfortunately, our rulers, past and present, don’t like to hold the mirror and talk things unpleasant.
A few folks think the media is obsessed with the NRO; while others castigate us for talking about corruption 24/7. Targeting the president and his Swiss cases is unfair, they contend. The Supreme Court is crossing its bounds and needs to be corralled, they avow. Zardari himself says a handful of media guys want him to resign; not the people of Pakistan.
Democracy has become a deformed joke.
While the chief minister of Punjab is busy countering the governor who is literally breathing down his neck, making sure that Shahbaz Sharif falls flat on his face ending up a failure and Punjab falls to the PPP, the governance is going to the dogs. Salmaan Taseer is bent upon fulfilling his promise he made to his boss Zardari, vowing that he will present young Bilawal with Punjab. Sharif’s and Taseer’s politics has gotten so personal with both throwing spanners in each other’s paths that the day is not far when people power might oust both.
Law Minister Rana Sanaullah motorcaded with screaming police hooters in Jhang with the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan leader, Maulana Ahmed Ludhyanvi, while campaigning for the by-elections in Jhang being held today. The SSP openly targets the Shias and kills them whenever it can.
If this is ‘democracy’ it’s the very devil. It’s ugly as hell.
In Sindh, it’s the same story. The PPP and the MQM are on a destructive path, determined to drag the province down with their petty politics. We’re told that the Sindh chief minister is hobnobbing with the ANP guys to create mayhem for the MQM in Karachi. More innocent blood will flow just to keep the rulers hold on to power.
If this is ‘democracy’ it’s the very devil. It’s ugly as hell.
In NWFP where terrorism stalks the land, the ANP-led government has once more demanded that their province be called ‘Pukhtunkhwa.’ It’s threatening to boycott the forthcoming session of parliament (where Zardari is supposed to shed his presidential powers) if their demand is not met. Their handpicked bureaucrats are being given perks beyond their allowances. The chief secretary, according to a Peshawar resident, has a “Toyota Camry, a 2,400cc car when he is officially allowed a 1,300cc vehicle. This is besides a number of other cars at his disposal. The higher grade officials have been allowed mobile phones costing Rs15,000 worth with the government picking up the tab up to Rs4,000. This is in addition to the landline phones that they have.”
The only common thread running among our politicians and bureaucrats of all shades and stripes in the centre and the provinces is money. All the biggies are raking it in with both hands. The proof of their corruption is in black and white carried in headlines by the print media everyday. Asked to explain how their personal wealth grew by leaps and bounds over the last one year, each one of them has had a cock-and-bull story to tell. They may silence the anchors questioning their assets but they cannot fool the viewers.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s hope of catching the corrupt is beginning to look like a distant dream; a mirage, if you please. How can one man go around the country – from Khyber to Karachi — netting the corrupt? He is no bionic man with supernatural powers. Our lordship can only pass judgment; not move mountains. The two men — Malik Qayyum and Navaid Ahsan of NAB — against whom the full bench of the Supreme Court headed by the chief justice passed a judgment on December 16 go about their business unhindered. Interestingly, NAB courts are clearing cases against Rahman Malik and Usman Farooqui for the lack of evidence. What a joke! Imagine the amount of money frittered by NAB in making up cases against these people, only to now declare that they are innocent.
Meanwhile, the curse of the VIPs continues. I get this email from an irate passenger saying that last Friday the PIA flight from Islamabad to Karachi “instead of departing at 3.00 pm was delayed by 15 minutes because our honourable Senate Chairman Farooq Naek came in his Merc all the way to the tarmac to board the flight.”
“It’s about time someone identified our VVIPs in uniform and in the judiciary too,” writes another concerned Pakistani.
Indeed, accountability across the board can save Pakistan in the final analysis.
Email: anjumniaz@rocketmail.com
No Spinzone: Interview with history by Anjum Niaz
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Anjum Niaz
Sunday, 07 Mar, 2010
Paris was like a femme fatale. Ambassador Jamsheed Marker loved being in the company of artists, writers, fashion designers and intellectuals. He counts conductor Zubin Mehta and actor Omar Sharif among his good friends. But one sad incident clearly stays in his memory of those bucolic days; the untimely death of Shahnawaz Bhutto. Marker sketches the details of the tragedy as though it happened yesterday.
Begum Nusrat Bhutto lived in Cannes, in the French Riviera. The lodgings were loaned to her by the then French minister of justice. The minister was a good friend of the Bhuttos as was President Gaddafi of Libya. Gaddafi had given large sums of money to the Bhuttos. One evening during dinner in a restaurant, the two boys — Murtaza and Shahnawaz — entered into an argument over the division of the money.
“Benazir tried to calm them down but she didn’t succeed,” remembers Marker. In the end she took her mother and sister back to their home, while Murtaza followed Shahnawaz to his flat. The fight turned ugly. At some point the French police came to arrest the inmates. By that time Shahnawaz was unconscious. He had taken an overdose of drugs. The police could not arrest Murtaza because he had a Syrian diplomatic passport. Later that night the younger brother passed away. The police arrested his Afghan wife for “not coming to the aid of a dying man.” She hired a lawyer but the case was quashed by the bereaved family when she threatened to spill the beans.
“The whole affair was so sordid; so grim; so grisly,” says Marker who was given all the details by the head of the French intelligence police. But General Naseerullah Babar, who was later Benazir’s interior minister, claims that General Zia had a hand in the murder. He had sent a death squad to eliminate the younger son. Babar says Shahnawaz was poisoned, I ask Marker: “No, that’s not true at all. Zia had nothing to do with it.”
Ambassador Marker, 88, sits in his airy study at his Bath Island home, surrounded by photos of world leaders he has met. It’s like an interview with history as he unfolds chapter after chapter of world events in which he was a player dexterously mapping Pakistan’s course among the comity of nations. Did a supernatural power guide him? I ask. He smiles. “As a fighter in the navy, I encountered danger and death. It made me strong. Life is all about determination, diligence and truth.”
He is busy writing another book where he will name names. Unlike Quiet Diplomacy, which is a brilliant memoir of the ambassador, the next one tentatively called Outlook, will focus on the social, developmental and political corrosion in Pakistan over the years. “Sycophancy is the single factor in our failure to progress,” he says. He remembers how one day he and his wife went to have lunch with Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan and Begum Raana. The host was missing. After a while he came in seething with rage. “Normally Liaquat didn’t lose his cool. But that day he fumed,” says Marker. “How dare these evacuee fellows present me with a number of properties saying that I can have them in lieu of my properties I have left behind in India?” the prime minister told Marker. “I threw back the folder at them saying that they should never raise this subject again until they had provided shelter to each and every refugee living out in the open air all over Karachi.”
Marker says Liaquat Ali Khan was an honest man. “When he died he did not own a single house and had just Rs4,000 in his bank account. Look at our leaders today… they are corrupt and surrounded by sycophants whose only job is flattery. It’s been the death of our value system. Few have the guts to speak the truth before the rulers.”
How come Marker is meant to be in the Guinness Book of Records as having been Ambassador to more countries than any other person if he was not a sycophant? “Well, I’m not sure if I’m in the Guinness Book, but all I can say is that I never jockeyed for a job. I really didn’t care and in fact each time the government changed I resigned.”
Though he was a non-career diplomat, Marker holds the record of serving as ambassador of Pakistan continually for thirty years, in ten top capitals of the world. In each country, he left a mark. Embarrassed to talk about his own feats, Marker meanders through vignettes that add a touch of humour to them. “In Prime Minister Suhrawardy’s time the joke of the day was that the society ladies were divided into two categories: PPM (pinched by the prime minister and UNPPM (un-pinched by the prime minister)! But he was another very honest man. His only weakness was women.
“Zulfi would say that the only way Suhrawardy can be arrested is for molesting women!” Marker was a good friend of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who like Marker shared a love of cricket. “But when he became the PM, I stopped calling him Zulfi.” Marker remained a friend even when ZAB was out in the cold during the Ayub era. “I sent him a letter in the diplomatic bag. I’ve never told anyone but I even gave two lakh rupees to him when he formed the PPP. I could have lost my job, but I didn’t care!”
The rot according to Marker began with Ghulam Mohammad. The bureaucrats became very powerful and in collusion with Punjabi politicians like Gurmani and others ruined the system of governance. “People are like sheep led by wolves,” Marker quotes a friend. “Pakistan after Liaquat has never been ruled by a genuinely elected leader.” says Marker. “Those who ruled were never true representatives of the people.”
He wanted to resign when Benazir Bhutto became the PM the second time. “She came to Washington on a state visit. In our private meetings where we discussed Pakistan’s national interests, she always had her lobbyist Mark Segal and friend Peter Galbraith sit in. I was most unhappy about it. They had no business to be there.”
There are many more anecdotes that Marker shared with me. Hopefully they will find a place in his new book. History is about people in power and how they ruled. Who better to write about Pakistan than this great man who served “two presidents, seven prime ministers, three chiefs of army staff and many foreign ministers.”
Marker quotes Moeen Qureshi who was with Zia on the night Bhutto was hanged. “I stayed with Zia until 2am in the morning. Zia was cool as a cat as we talked about everything under the sun. The next morning I read that ZAB had been hanged!”
anjumniaz@rocketmail.com
VIP virus by Anjum Niaz
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Saturday, March 06, 2010
Anjum Niaz
Why must I continue to dwell on the VIPs? Only because they are a social evil number one. We need an antidote to the virus they suffer from, found only in the Third World. It’s been largely eradicated from the developed world. Anyone inventing a cure deserves the Nobel Prize. The disease is as fatal as AIDS. It attacks healthy cells that produce a chemical called ‘humility.’ Our DNA, that differentiates us from every other human being, is made of molecules that store information. The DNA acts like a blueprint, or a recipe, or a code, grounded in our genes. No scientist to date has succeeded in identifying and separating the VIP virus from the genes of a person in power. His DNA is delusional, prompting him that his genes are superior to others around.
The VIP virus is very destructive. It brings out the worst in a human. The symptoms are common and very easy to detect: a bloated head; a swollen ego; a stiff neck; a facial smirk; an air of impertinence; a stuffy gravitas; and a cocksure gait.
Since the virus is contagious, anyone who was once a maja, saja, gama (Tom, Dick or Harry) but now elevated to a VIP status gets infected the moment he assumes power. He begins to suffer from symptoms mentioned above. He consciously isolates himself from friends and acquaintances who appear to be ‘nobodies’ and therefore deserve the VIP’s scorn.
The VIP virus makes the sufferer delinquent, demented and deranged. He begins to imagine that he or she is destined for greatness; is God’s chosen; is invulnerable; and is indispensable. No, I’m not only talking about our four army dictators – Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf — but also our civilian presidents and prime ministers: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and even Shaukat Aziz. They wouldn’t let go of their chair.
President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani too have been infected with the VIP virus. Not only that but they have passed on the virus to their governors, chief ministers, ministers, ruling party parliamentarians, bureaucrats and heads of state-run organisations.
We have a full-scale epidemic of the virus and there’s nothing we can do about it! We must suffer their hubris.
Remember the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush during a press conference in Baghdad. He became an overnight hero for his people. And more recently the corrupt Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, got punched in the face. While his henchmen gave clichĂ©d statements like, “Democracy is at risk in this country,” (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?) or that the punch is “an act of terrorism,” the truth is that the Italians hate the guy. But the president is in denial. He told his hecklers: “You paint me as a monster, but I don’t think I am one — firstly because I am good-looking and secondly because I’m a good guy.”
Ever heard of mob hysteria? It can turn very ugly. I strongly suggest that our VIPs try to lick the virus circulating in their bloodstream before they become the victims of mass hysteria. They can get hurt very badly. Don’t try the patience of people already plagued with a broken-down system of governance and brazen corruption at all levels.
But I have good news to share with my readers. Senator Raza Rabbani has not been stricken with the VIP virus. Thank God for His small mercies. He’s symptom-free! I wrote in my last column that a flagged Mercedes car waited for him at the apron as he alighted from the PIA aircraft that brought us to Islamabad from Karachi last Sunday. It now turns out that the couple I saw sit in the limousine was not Raza Rabbani but Senate Chairman Farooq Naek and his daughter. Does Naek hold this post only because he was Zardari’s personal attorney fighting his corruption cases? Some VIP!
Email: anjumniaz@rocketmail .com
The VIP vice by Anjum Niaz
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Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Anjum Niaz
The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting
Last Sunday on a PIA flight from Karachi to Islamabad, we had a VIP travel in the first-class cabin. When the flight landed in Islamabad, we were made to wait until the VIP was safely seated in his waiting Mercedes flying two flags – the Pakistan and perhaps the PPP flags. The wait for us was not long, but what was shocking was to see the car drive up to the apron, as close as it could get to the aircraft. Was the VIP a foreign guest warranting maximum security? No. He was in fact Raza Rabbani! To make sure I was not hallucinating, I double-checked with a member of the crew as we alighted. The airhostess confirmed it was the senator. Rabbani is currently chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security and also heads the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reform. Do his handlers think that ordinary passengers like us are a threat to his life and therefore he must be whisked away the minute he sets foot on the ground?
“Raza Rabbani is one of the very few politicians who have been able to attain and sustain a high level of credibility in the eyes of public as well as among all the political parties,” says a Google search I did on him today. “He is one politician who does not have any scandals associated with him; financial, moral, or political. He does not come from a feudal background, but earned his credibility as a competent lawyer and then as a principled political leader.”
Why then does Rabbani fall for the VIP trappings? Surely, his life is not threatened the way Rehman Malik contends that his is? Malik has excused himself from appearing in person at courts because our security czar claims that there are people out to kill him.
I wrote on the chief secretary Punjab last week. He’s on leave these days because the car that he was sitting in killed a man. The chief secretary’s chauffeur is perhaps behind bars. But here is what he said against his boss according to a Lahore-based English newspaper report appearing on January 28. Permit me to reproduce it verbatim: “Ghulam Murtaza, the Punjab chief secretary’s (CS) driver who was arrested on Tuesday for running over a retired colonel, has alleged that the CS had slapped him for not driving fast, shortly before the car hit and caused the death of Col (r) Muhammad Ikram, sources privy to the investigation told the daily. ‘Most of the drivers left due to Javed Mahmood’s unruly behaviour… the CS is known to use rough language and has sometimes even slapped drivers, telling them to drive faster,’ sources in the Punjab Civil Secretariat said. They also claimed that in the past week, the CS had manhandled and humiliated Murtaza in front of the camp office staff over a minor oversight. On the day of the accident, the driver himself was under great psychological pressure, sources said. A number of drivers, who had worked for the CS, told the daily that Javed Mahmood had a habit of humiliating his drivers during out-of-station trips. Interestingly, Javed Mahmood has replaced around 15 staff drivers since his posting as the head of the province’s civil administration in March 2008. According to the sources, Ghulam Murtaza has claimed that soon after the incident the CS got out of the car and walked away, directing him later on the phone not to disclose to anyone that he (Javed Mahmood) was in the car at the time of the accident.”
If the damning testimony by the driver as reproduced above is baloney, the ex-chief secretary must set the record straight. It’s most damaging. But more often than not, it’s a reflection of how our bureaucrats treat their inferiors, especially servants, who dare not protest. The issue here is the cold hauteur of civil servants, trained to be rude, rough, boorish and harsh towards their servants and lower staff. Their wives and children too treat those who serve them with arrogance. It becomes a part of their DNA.
Pakistan is cursed with a VIP culture that will just not go away. There is no cure. From Zardari down to the thanedar or the patwari, we the ordinary citizens must accept these holy cows and be meek, submissive and servile before them. God forbid, should one come in their path, one is pushed aside like a speck of dust and told to remove himself/herself, even reprimanded and warned for polluting the stratified air the VIP breathes. ‘Get lost’ is the message!
Some even get killed! Like the colonel and the unlucky motorcyclist who happened to be on the same road as the senior adviser to the Punjab chief minister, Sardar Zulfiqar Khosa, driving from Derawar Fort after the conclusion of the Cholistan Jeep Rally. He was squished like a fly by the fleeting police escort ‘guarding’ Khosa. Two other riders survived the swat but are probably maimed for life.
Nothing short of a revolution will scorch this bumper crop of VIPs from our land.
The VIPs, past and present, are bijli chors. We all know who these men and women are. But the latest culprit who stole electricity is Nawaz Sharif. I blame him because he was the central character at a meeting in Lahore recently where the press caught PML-N organisers blatantly using the ‘kunda’ to illuminate the jalsagah. Even more hilarious was the hurriedly organised press conference where the PML-N dudes, Saad Rafique and Rana Sanaullah, separately tried to cover up the crime by giving contradictory statements. Instead of a damage control exercise, the two pugilists ended up looking like jokers. When Nawaz Sharif was ‘king,’ don’t we all remember how he conducted himself? Every weekend he’d take off for Lahore, carting a planeload of elite officials and miscellaneous to confer with at his Model Town residence and later Raiwind estate. We, the taxpayers, paid for the weekly VVIP junkets.
Pakistan is without a finance minister! Zardari is holidaying (probably attending to his millions) in London at state expense. Notice his luxurious residence there. In a photo showing him talking to British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, one sees an easel, the kind artists use to put their canvas on, standing behind the sitting Zardari. It holds a propped up Jinnah’s portrait. A Pakistani flag on the president’s right completes the picture.
Does our VVIP think that by sporting a makeshift portrait of Jinnah and a flag, he can impress the hardboiled British and convince them of his patriotism and sincerity to serve the poor and starving of Pakistan? Wearing one’s religious or patriotic beliefs on one’s sleeves smacks of hypocrisy and guile.
At home, his prime minister rings hollow on accountability vowing he’ll catch the corrupt. Gilani puts up an act of ‘Mr Clean’ telling the media that he has no taxable income except his salary! Give us a break. One’s told that his family is busy taking loans from banks for setting up industry. Being VVIPs, these bounty-hunters will, naturally, not be required to repay the loans. That’s the name of the game!
An economist who is shocked that Pakistan is being run without a finance minister says, “It surprises me that after 64 years of poor economic management, failed policies of bankers, bureaucrats and politicians, we continue to expect wonders. Well the VIPs are going to do what they do best — beg some more and follow the master’s (donor) advice. They even beg from the tiny UAE and Qatar!”
Email: anjumniaz@rocketmail.com
The chief secretary’s chauffeur by Anjum Niaz
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Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Anjum Niaz
The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting
Let’s not get overly swayed by the Swiss banks blow-by-blow account currently hitting the headlines almost every day. There is corruption elsewhere, except the media’s full attention at the moment is fixated on Zardari’s alleged millions stashed away in reportedly forty bank accounts in Switzerland, Europe and the US. Let’s instead zero in on GOR (Government Officers’ Residences) estate, Lahore. Number 9 Aikman Road is the official home of the chief secretary, Punjab. It was once a modest, unremarkable sort of residence with just one sentry standing guard. The sprawling lawn would hardly invite a second gaze from the passerby. There was nothing spectacular to see in it. The inmates equally unspectacular would go about their business, unnoticed and unheralded. The chief secretary himself would be his own chauffeur, driving his kids to school and ending up at his office in the Punjab secretariat to conduct the business of the day. And the ‘Begum chief secretary’ had to fend for herself, use her own private car and private driver to ferry her about the town.
Period.
Today, 9 Aikman Road has been turned into a vulgar display of power, announcing to all and sundry: beware of the inmate. He’s a man you wouldn’t want to mess with. He’s the chief minister’s head honcho. He’s the chosen one. He’s invincible. He’s invulnerable. But God abhors vanity. In one fleeting moment, the present chief secretary met his comeuppance. It was divine. His hit-and-run story turned his world upside down. Even his benefactor, the chief minister could not save him. The people’s wrath was upon him. Finally he gave in to popular demand and stepped down. He’s currently hunkered down because he was allegedly callous enough to leave a dying man on the road when his car hit the unfortunate person. Had his victim been a poor, faceless and unknown member of the hoi polloi, the story would have been dead like the man himself. But the victim was a retired army colonel. His family went to the press. The rest, as they say is history. By the way had our chief secretary committed this crime in the US, he would be behind bars because ‘hit-and-run’ is a jailable offence.
Join me in a tour de force of the GOR estate, home to elite civil servants and the judiciary. The chief minister too has his camp there. And then decide why these favoured few should live in luxury at the expense of the taxpayers. The British built the homes. The old trees on both sides shading the roads must shed tears at the ‘low lifes’ now living there. There are 161 homes. And under their porches stand several staff cars – one for the sahib, one for the begum sahib and one for the kids. Several peons, assistants, deputy assistants and drivers, all paid for by the government, stand hand and foot to serve their master and his family. I shan’t be surprised if the daily household items, including food, cold drinks and fruit are billed to the government under the pretext of official entertainment. If this is not corruption, what is?
“In my calculation an enterprising and well-connected civil servant could easily cost the tax payer Rs800,000 to Rs10,000,000 a month. Of course none of this is monitorable, allowing the myth of a poor underpaid civil servant to be perpetuated” says Nadeem ul Haque, an adviser to the IMF in Washington. “Did you know that GOR has three clubs and they refuse to let a school be built there? Did you know that they have sealed off GOR as a private garden and have allocated tons of money to make an old house into a leisure club for bureaucrats? Meanwhile the poor kids school in GOR has been destroyed. Who do we blame? It goes far beyond Zaradari,” he continues.
Nadeem wonders why the media expends all its energy castigating Zardari day and night while no one shines a spotlight on the bureaucrats who commit daylight robbery in the form of perks that cannot be monetized and therefore are outside of the pale of public scrutiny.
Living in the lap of luxury is head honcho # 2; the commissioner Lahore. According to recent news item headlined ‘Khusro Pervaiz highest-paid bureaucrat’ we’re told that that is what the commissioner has become. A TV channel reports that while Khusro Pervaiz drew a monthly salary of Rs 334,000 as the project director of the Lahore Ring Road project, he was also receiving Rs50,000 a month for holding the additional charge of the commissioner. Please go look and see how many Prados/land cruisers are parked in his home courtesy the project he heads. This is aside the official cars he enjoys as the commissioner.
“The civil servant has learnt to game the incentive system that seeks to keep cash salaries low and allows invisible perks to be distributed freely beyond public scrutiny,” says Nadeem. “Recently, they have given themselves all manner of allowances in the name of development and efficiency. Thus the commissioner Lahore is now project director of Ring Road and a development office and hence draws those hefty salaries.”
Let us remind ourselves of the role of commissioner Lahore, states Nadeem, himself a son of an ICS (Indian Civil Service)officer. “It is mainly a magisterial function i.e., his/her main task should be the maintenance of law and order. Why then is he doing development? The answer is obvious–to collect the allowances.”
How can a commissioner look after law and order when he’s busy elsewhere? Maybe the office of chief minister Shahbaz can tell us how.
“The commissioner also gets additional perks that we are not counting. A house in walled estate with a rental value of over Rs300,000, all utilities paid, domestic servants (number unknown), cars with gas (number unknown), cheap club memberships to at least 2 elite institutions etc. Frequently government will give a civil servant of this rank land at heavily subsidized rates,” says Nadeem.
“Monetize perks now!” shouts Nadeem, “Is it not time to rid the tax payer of the burden of perks?”
Indeed a valid question but one that does not gain favour with the rulers of the land. Nadeem ul Haque has been kept out in the cold, despite his excellent credentials as a seasoned economist. Someone like him should be heading the Planning Commission, but do you think that can ever happen? The man is too blunt for his bosses’ comfort level; his recommendations will denude the bosses of their perks.
A retired civil servant tells me Shahbaz Sharif is not as effective an administrator as he was last time he was chief minister. “He always seems in a hurry,” says the civil servant, “he cuts people in the middle and moves on to the next speaker without allowing him a chance to complete his say.” Why is Shahbaz Sharif in such a hurry? Does he have a train to catch or a jet to fly him to more exotic places abroad? Why is he loath to listen to good advice proffered by well-wishers? Maybe Governor Salman Taseer is tightening his net around him. Taseer makes no secret of targetting the Sharifs. It’s become his obsession.
“Shahbaz Sharif thinks that by making think tanks, he’s getting somewhere. But the tragedy is he isn’t. Nothing substantial appears happening,” the retired bureaucrat who has just witnessed the goings on at the CM’s secretariat tells me. “Besides, the junior officers are insecure and unsure of their boss. They don’t know when he may fire them on the spot!”
More next week.
Email: aniaz@fas.harvard.edu & www. anjumniaz.com
An affair to remember by Anjum Niaz
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Anjum Niaz
Sunday, 21 Feb, 2010
This is a triangular story of platonic, sensual and long distance love between a woman and two men as different as day and night. One man being a boozer, a womaniser, the other a paragon of piety (so he led us to believe). And in the middle was a woman — attractive and steamy. At first, there was a visible tilt in the direction of the Army House in Rawalpindi, which the woman frequented. How the occupant reciprocated is a classified state secret buried with his bones at Faisal Mosque.
Curse Zia as much as you want, but unlike Musharraf, he at least left Pakistan with a legacy. The legacy was Charlie Wilson. “He won the war,” Zia said of the Texas congressman who single-handedly convinced US Congress to funnel truckloads of money to finance the CIA-sponsored war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. And how did Zia get around Wilson? The route to Wilson’s heart, Zia knew, was through a woman. That woman was Joanne Herring. Our dictator general appointed the attractive socialite Pakistan’s honorary consul in Texas. He flirted with her; he honoured and excited her. She fell hook, line and sinker for the president. While Wilson fell hook, line and sinker for Herring. He became a friend of Zia’s because Joanne so told him to.
Wilson was our mojo man, with General Zia pampering him like a spoilt brat, traipsing through Pakistan with his money bags and spark plugs to buttress the forerunners of the fanatic Taliban legion, the pseudo pious Zia tolerated the floozies and the flummery of the cowboy Texan. The credit to net Joanne Herring, then a 40-something, known “as a collector of powerful men, a social lioness and hostess” goes to Sahibzada Yaqub Ali Khan, our charming, verse-reciting (in any lingo you name it) ultimate romantic. He was our man in Washington and getting Herring named as Pakistan’s Honorary Consul for Houston was a breeze for him.
If only Musharraf was half the â€lady killer’ his predecessor of the ’80s was, imagine where we would have been today. Instead of running after every US congressman coming to Islamabad almost every week begging for money to fight the Taliban (remember in Wilson’s time the bad guys were the Soviets), Pakistan would have had someone influential like Joanne Herring to fight our cause. Now, the burden to lobby for funds has fallen on the frail shoulders of poor Husain Haqqani in Washington. We expect him to deliver; but he’s no Joanne Herring! Though we can’t fault him for not trying – he did after all get senators Kerry and Lugar to lobby for an aid bill named after them!
I wrote about Congressman Charlie Wilson on these pages six years ago when the book Charlie Wilson’s War came out. I write today because he’s no more. Here’s an introduction of himself which Wilson sportingly read out to an amused audience at the Texas Book Festival in Houston when the book first came out: “TO PREFIX â€the Honourable’ to a man like former Representative, Charlie Wilson, a member of the US Congress from 1973-1996 is highly “inappropriate”: he was a “drunken, ignorant, lying, zipper-flapping, corrupt, power hungry freak!”
With a naughty crinkle and an indulgent hauteur — â€good time Charlie’, as the six-foot-four congressman was called, also known as â€the biggest playboy in Congress’ he read aloud his vice-list penned by some “Australian pervert”, as Charlie called him. The Aussie intellectual had poured scorn over the book. The book rose to become a bestseller and inspired Hollywood’s most-famous Tom Hanks to produce the movie and act the part of Charlie Wilson. Julia Roberts played Joanne Herring.
Written by George Crile — a man not easily impressed and a veteran producer of Sixty Minutes, America’s best-loved Sunday segment — he is in total awe of his subject. “Famous for his capacity to drink more whiskey, chase more women, get into more scandals than any other legislator of his time, Charlie is literally a genius at it,” enthuses Crile to his audience while marveling at “sponsoring the only successful jihad in modern history.”
“How one man could make a huge difference” in using his influence with the CIA as the member of the all-powerful Appropriations Committee and engineering billions worth of arms transfer to Afghanistan to “drive the Russians out,” makes the curmudgeon Crile salute Charlie. Even Crile’s critics concede that his account is “important, if appalling, precisely because it details how a ruthless ignoramus congressman and a high-ranking CIA thug managed to hijack the American foreign policy.”
Wilson, while “a seemingly corrupt, cocaine-snorting, scandal-prone womaniser who the CIA was convinced could only get the Agency into terrible trouble if it permitted him to become involved in any way in its operations”, as Crile earlier had commented in his show, but Crile today looks at Wilson as his hero! And so was he Pakistan’s hero! Rest in peace â€good time Charlie’!
anjumniaz@rocketmail.com
Friend and foe! by Anjum Niaz
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Saturday, February 20, 2010
Anjum Niaz
A brain scan may be the answer. We should arrange for scanners to be sent to the presidency and the Prime Minister’s House. No, make it to the house of the Senate chairman, law minister and adviser to the prime minister on law, as well. The five need to be psychoanalysed in the light of why they acted as they did, last week. Any good psychiatrist would declare their spat and later ‘friendship’ with the Supreme Court over judges’ appointment to be weird; abnormal and irresponsible. For sure they’d be declared unbalanced and therefore unfit for the titles that the five helmsmen hold.
Prime Minister Gilani is a prime example of a ‘good cop/bad cop’ all in one. I hate this clichĂ© but for the lack of a better example, do bear with me. It’s like being a friend and foe at the same time. In the classic definition, there is a team of two interrogators. The ‘bad cop’ takes an aggressive, negative stance towards the subject, making blatant accusations, derogatory comments, threats, and in general creating antipathy between the subject and himself. The good cop appears sympathetic, supportive, understanding, and cooperative. Gilani was the bad cop on the floor of the house directing his threats towards the apex court. The following day he became the ‘good cop’. He crashed into the Supreme Court dinner party thrown by the chief justice in honour of Justice Ramday.
The ‘bad cop’ as we well know is the president and his Punjab governor. Both have remained consistent in their antithetical attitude towards the chief justice and his court. They have gone public many times with their castigation. Will they continue with their overt and covert attacks in future is easy to answer. They will if their positions of power are threatened.
But the oddest part of this ongoing saga is the Sharifs’ demand for the removal of Salmaan Taseer. The governor is the brothers’ bĂŞte noire or the ‘dark beast’ as the term denotes. Taseer has defied the Sharif hegemony in Punjab and tried his best to destroy it. The battle between the two groups wages as one writes.
Was Gilani trying to lure the superior judiciary to relent on the NRO when he became the ‘guest who came to dinner’ at the Supreme Court? Was he trying to negotiate an unmolested full term for Zardari so that he is able to continue ruling us without the blot of being accused of corruption? The government may have given in on the judges’ appointment, but it’s the NRO question that is on everyone’s mind. How that will pan out in the coming days is the $1.5 billion question!
Our rulers at the centre and in the provinces have thus far flunked the morality test. We hear that NAB is now investigating into the corruption cases of the Sharifs. How come it’s doing it now and at whose instance? Has NAB, whose chairman Navid Ahsan cannot be sacked, so says Gilani, been given government orders to go after the Sharifs? If so, this amounts to a ’shut-up call’ to the Sharifs from the Zardari camp.
With the government and the opposition calling each other corrupt, the circus has gone on too long.
Reading The adventures of an officer in the service of Runjeet Singh by H M L Lawrence, I came across a passage where he describes the then judicial system: “Under such a system, the poor man has little chance; and though the vagabond thief, pressed perhaps by hunger, has his nose and ears cut off, and is thereby irrecoverably branded one of the profession, the wealthy robber and the dexterous ruffian ride unmolested through the land.”
Does the above passage apply to us today? It seems the rules of the game during the Runjeet Singh era live on. Why else would our VVIPs be given immunity?
The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting.
Email: anjumniaz@rocketmail.com
Condoning corruption by Anjum Niaz
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Anjum Niaz
The writer is a freelance journalist with over twenty years of experience in national and international reporting
Step back and just think. It had to happen. Sooner than later. How could the Americans, British and Saudis with the blessings of Benazir Bhutto, ISI chief General Kayani and Musharraf’s man Tariq Aziz ever condone corruption? And yet they did. In the summer of 2007 Washington was the watering hole where the group would meet to manufacture the National Reconciliation Ordinance or the NRO as it’s known.
Surely they must have taken into account that if Benazir Bhutto was killed her husband would be her natural successor. Or were they that naĂŻve to assume that some feckless leader like Amin Fahim would be her heir? All knew Asif Zardari. The US intelligence agency like the CIA and British MI 6 also called SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) had enough evidence of his corruption as did our own ISI. Did they not think that it was a given that Asif Zardari would one day be sitting in the Prime Minister’s House or the presidency if his wife was assassinated? After all, everyone knew, including BB herself, that she was a marked woman by the Islamic jihadists.
Did they not think what would happen in case their reprehensible NRO was made null and void?
Surely they must have known that the Swiss courts money-laundering cases of Asif Zardari will crop up? Did they expect him, as the sitting head of government, to return the alleged billions ‘looted’ from Pakistan? Did they think that he would say sorry and admit to this alleged crime? How can a head of state ever remain in place after he’s admitted ’stealing’ millions from the national treasury his late wife as the prime minister was morally responsible for?
The NRO was a devilish instrument. It should never have been allowed to come to life. Never mind about democracy. This is no democracy where the president, his powerful ministers and envoys in important western capitals are alleged to have committed financial crime. The prime minister narrowly escaped the NRO net by having an out-of-court settlement with NAB. His wife, Fauzia Gilani, was a big bank-defaulter. We’re told the couple has paid up. How much of the money they ‘borrowed’ to set up businesses got returned by them will must be made public.
Prime Minister Gilani is another Shaukat Aziz. He follows the dictation given to him from Zardari. Aziz, as we know, was just a sidekick of Musharraf. We never thought that Gilani would follow Aziz’s way. He’s in full defiance of the December 16 judgment on the NRO by the 17-member bench of the Supreme Court. How long he can get away by pulling all kinds of rabbits out of the bag to protect Zardari’s billions and stop them from coming to Pakistan is not rocket science.
Corruption can never be condoned.
Notice all the old faces sitting in the presidency – with Syeda Abida Hussain, husband Fakhr Imam and Aitzaz Ahsan taking the front row to show their support for Zardari and his corruption. Aitzaz felt no discomfort seated with his former sworn enemies Babar Awan and Latif Khosa! We’re done with this kind of façade. We need new, honest, clean leaders to lead us.
Senator Kerry is in town. He’s back to do some fire-fighting. Either prop up or dump Asif Zardari. We’ll have to wait and see. As the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry owes it to Pakistan to rectify the damage the NRO has done. Other than doling out a few millions, which this corrupt government will gobble up, I don’t see the Americans really pushed about our long-term political stability. They couldn’t care less. All they want is to contain terrorists entering their space and Kayani making sure that they don’t cross the Atlantic to ‘attack’ America.
The battle against corruption that the people on the street should have waged against this government never happened. Once again the burden fell on the Supreme Court to challenge the corrupt. Why didn’t the people play their due role? All I can say is that they have been misinformed; misled and misguided. Aitzaz Ahsan, Ali Ahmed Kurd and human rights activist Asma Jehangir, the three legal luminaries, were our heroes. We expected them to lead us the way, not defend the corruption of Asif Ali Zardari. Fortunately stalwarts like Justice (r) Tariq Mahmud, Athar Minallah and Justice (r) Fakhruddin G Ebrahim have come out strongly in favour of the supremacy of the Supreme Court, though in the beginning they too were lost in the fog of words.
In a widely circulated email, Justice (r) F G Ebrahim (FGE) writes, “being of the view that more harm is done by ignoring seniority, which opens the door for exercise of discretion in principle, I am against seniority being ignored, particularly in (the) judiciary. My first reaction, therefore, was that the appointment of the chief justice Lahore High Court to the Supreme Court and elevation of the next senior-most judge as the Lahore High Court chief justice was justified. I had assumed that in accordance with Article 177 of the Constitution, these appointments were made by the president after consultation with the chief justice of Pakistan, and that the president was bound by such consultations.”
Was the chief justice of Pakistan even consulted? Asks FGE who is shocked that the two highest authorities in the land – the president and the chief justice of Pakistan — have conflicting statements to make.
“The president’s spokesperson asserts that the consultation took place and is denied vehemently by the honourable chief justice of Pakistan,” continues FGE. “There must be some documentary evidence to prove that such consultations took place. But much to our regret the people have been kept in the dark creating further controversy. With a poor credibility score of the government, the latter’s version will not be acceptable to the people. Without consultation, these appointments, in contradiction to the binding recommendations of the chief justice of Pakistan remain invalid, being in violation of Article 177 of the Constitution.”
Let the people decide. This is democracy, isn’t it? Why should a handful of self-appointed TV hosts and their guests be given the right to condone corruption? Why should editorial writers be given the right to declare that the court of Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry is stabbing democracy by demanding that the corrupt cough up the money? Why should a bunch of columnists be defending President Zardari’s well of wealth by calling him the victim of judicial activism?
Why this is being done will not come to light until the matter comes to its logical end.
Beware too of the beards. They have all come out of the woodwork to support the judiciary. Some circles have expressed concern with the clique, once again, being formed by Nawaz Sharif and the fundos. God forbid should this happen, the Taliban-like leaders will be back in the saddle. In the end the battle is between the suited-booted PPP leaders, in their shiny suits with dandy ties and kerchiefs versus the shalwar kamiz wearing PML-N and their partners, the clergy.
Just for the sake of saving one man, Asif Zardari, today battle lines are being drawn. Is he worth the cost?
Email: anjumniaz@rocketmail.com
View from US: If only it cared enough!-Anjum Niaz
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Sunday, 31 Jan, 2010
“Thank you for calling PIA,” says an American (his accent is unmistakable) on the other side of the phone line followed by music. “Your call will be answered momentarily.” A few minutes later, the same voice rolls on ,“We invite you to the land of majestic mountains, 5,000 year old rich heritage and culture. Assistance is only moments away.” More minutes pass and message #3 comes on “We know you’re holding and we’ve not forgotten about you. A representative will be with you shortly.” Soon the tape runs out and the caller is kicked back to square one. The recorded message starts all over again! In the end you’re told to leave a message for the station manager at New York.
I’m a â€frequent flyer’ crossing the Atlantic twice a year. Never have I seen a gora on our national carrier. It’s just us Pakistanis traveling back and forth. So why is PIA wasting its breath on enticing foreigners to visit the “land of majestic mountains”? Better it would be if it concentrated on assisting people like us who give the airline business despite the step-motherly treatment we get from their end — be it Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore or New York.
“Getting through to you is like asking for the moon,” I tell station manager Ali Uddean Ahmad when I see him at the PIA counter at JFK airport. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you and must have left a â€zillion’ messages, even wrote an email hoping you’d respond, but you’re rare as a white tiger!” Ali has recently been posted to the most difficult job of his career — dealing daily with Pakistani travellers like myself with all kinds of requests, some bizarre, some doable. I’ve been chasing him for weeks requesting for a bulk head seat in the cramped economy class as I return home! My journey from New York to Islamabad is sending butterflies in my stomach already. Why? First I cover 14 hours of direct flying from JFK to Lahore. Take my baggage and pray to God that PIA puts me up in a decent place for the night. The manager at Lahore Syed Zulfiqar Ali Naqvi or Rizvi (he refuses to give me his card) is holed up in his cabin somewhere at the airport. He refuses to entertain my request for sending me to a â€decent’ hotel even if I pay the difference from my pocket. “No that’s not possible.” So off I’m sent to a place reserved for economy class layovers.
If only PIA cared enough.
Six hours later, we’re being ferried to the airport to catch a morning flight to Islamabad. Lahore’s fog is thick as a thief. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. What if I can’t reach my final destination for another few days? I do manage to reach in one piece but the journey takes its toll. It’s simply ridiculous, horrendous, and preposterous for PIA to plan this route. Why can’t we travel direct to Islamabad — darn, it’s the capital of the country, not Timbuktu!
The airline can yet come out of the red by making smart changes. Pakistanis no matter of which country will always prefer to travel PIA. Get this. So give us direct routes; give us good ground and air service; be more caring of our little needs; don’t discriminate between us and the VIPs – seats must be allocated on first come first served basis; don’t fritter away money on cheap gifts for the business class passengers like watches and Rexene cases (some PIA biggie must make thousands in mark up prices); improve the quality of food and last but not the least be good to your own employees who deserve recognition.
Ali, my hard-to-reach contact, is an example of professionalism. The man is always at JFK at the time of PIA’s arrival and departure flights. He’s hands down making sure his ground staff is equally expeditious. But do get him some secretarial help — someone who picks up his phone and passes the message on, for God’s sake! Mirvat Omar works at the sales office in Manhattan. At the second ring, she picks up her phone. She’s efficient but wants to quit. Why? “I’ve been a ticketing agent ever since 1986. I moved over to PIA 23 years ago. They will not promote me nor will they sack me. I’m tired, frustrated and very angry, but if I resign today, I lose everything but if they fire me, PIA will have to pay all my dues!” She gets paid a minimum wage of $2,000 a month. Most of it goes in her long commute out of New Jersey. “I’m a single mom and need to work to run the home.”
This is most unfair. It’s gender discrimination. The woman, an Egyptian by birth who joined PIA only because she could say her prayers at her workplace, has no backing or support from a power horse at the headquarters in Karachi. Mirvat has sat at the same seat and done the same work every day of the year without any promotion. She holds an MA in archaeology and a degree in management and tourism.
Mirvat knows all the top bosses who have come and gone, some of them rotten to the core. Once a black American colleague of her’s was warned not to demand her rights because her Pakistani boss could “fix her real good!” The company, that’s what she calls PIA, has spent millions of dollars in fighting class action lawsuits filed against them by their lowly paid employees. “Instead of paying the lawyers such hefty fees, they could have rectified the situation by paying us more than the minimum wages that they pay.”
Is help on its way for Mirvat? Probably not. If only PIA cared enough!
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