The parliamentarians agreed that the provincial autonomy was inevitable for Pakistan, and supported the idea of a weak center and strong provinces. MPs from Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP), Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement (PONM) and the government ally Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) attended the seminar.
They termed the establishment a hurdle in the way of a strong Pakistan. They said that Senate is only a showoff institution which needs powers at par with the National Assembly.
The MPs of MQM and PONM demanded new constitution for the country, while PPPP and PML-N representatives committed during the seminar that they would instantly abolish the concurrent list and provide complete provincial autonomy when they will come into power. The parliamentarians said that a single person, above the parliament, is running the country.
Senator Sana Baloch, Syed Qurban Ali Shah, Moulana Asadullah Bhutto, Syed Zafar Ali Shah, and Kanwar Khalid Younas were among the panelists.
Speakers from Azad Kashmir feared displacement of more than 100,000 people because of the Mangla Dam extension project, and vowed to stop it. They said 12 alternatives are available to the government instead of raising the dam, but they are avoided because of less room for corruption and kickbacks. They alleged that the project provides opportunities for corruption. The speakers also demanded royalty of the income generated through Mangla Dam, as it is being given to the NWFP.
Arif Chaudhry, spokesperson of the Anti Mangla Dam Extension Committee, opposed the project, saying it would displace population of Mirpur. He said during the construction of Mangla Dam, more than 80,000 people were displaced, and some of them are still waiting for compensation. He said seven promises, including free electricity for Mirpur, were made at the time of Mangla Dam construction, but except one – sending 300 people to England – no other promise was kept. But the sending of 300 people to England, Arif said, was a ploy of the British construction company to get the project, and refuted the impression that it opened the doors of immigration.
He said the minimum price of one kanal land is 2.5 million rupees in Mirpur, but the government is paying only 50,000 rupees a kanal to the displaced people. Arif said 340 million rupees had been paid to NesPak Company for baseline survey but no physical survey has been conducted.
Raja Zulfiqar advocate, former president of AJK Bar Association, supported the construction of Kalabagh Dam instead of expanding Mangla Dam. He said there is an agreement between India and Pakistan under the United Nations that no project would be constructed which could harm the interest of the Kashmiris. “Mirpur was first destroyed in 1948 when Maharaja sent troops, and then in 1960 during the construction of Mangla Dam. Now Mirpur again faces destruction if the government forcibly raises Mangla Dam.”
Afsar Shahid, president of Kashmir Freedom Movement, proposed that instead of using force and coercion against the protesting people, it is better to talk to them. He said use of force would create more resentment, adding that though thousands of army men were called in when President General Pervez Musharraf visited the place to stop the people from protest, demonstrations were held.
Experts warned that persistent organic pollutants (POPs), harmful for health, could lead to birth defects, cancer and tumors. They urged the policy makers, planners, and environmentalists to follow the Stockholm Convention on POPs – an international treaty designed to end the production and use of some of the world’s most poisonous chemicals. Media’s role in raising awareness about POPs in Pakistan was also discussed.
Dr Mahmood A Khwaja, of SDPI, said even extremely small amounts of POPs can have negative effects on health.
The main speaker, Dr Jindrich Petrlik, from ARNIKA, Czech Republic, said that the elimination of POPs should be the ultimate goal, adding that many traditional technologies are inappropriate for POPs disposal and in some cases are themselves major sources of kilns, boilers, plasma, and deep well injection. He said alternative non-combustion technologies are commercially available and come closest to meeting the spirit, intent and obligations of the Stockholm Convention for POPs destruction.
Dr Noman Fazal Qadir, from Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency/UNDP, gave an account of the dioxin profile prepared under National Implementation Plan (NIP). He said NIP is an effort to identify main sources of dioxin, which, according to the reports, are mainly brick kilns, cement kilns and uncontrolled combustion processes such as open burning.
An official of Pakistan Metrological Department revealed that damages because of breaches in Shadikor Dam in Balochsitan would have been minimized, if the authorities had taken proactive initiatives, as they were cautioned about heavy rains two days before.
The seminar was told that in 2005, 561 people have been killed in flood disasters in Balochistan, besides affecting 750,000 people and causing 670 million rupees losses.
The speakers said the number of victims is increasing by the years due to poor disaster management in Pakistan. They said Pakistan has a relief and evacuation approach to disasters, but it needed proactive approach to reduce risks and hazards of the disasters.
Shoukat Ali Awan, of Pakistan Metrological Department, Lahore, said the Met Department is equipped with latest technologies and has effective early warning systems. He said two days before the flooding in Balochistan areas, the authorities, including the provincial government, were informed that heavy rains are expected in Gwadar. “It’s the basic responsibility of the local and provincial authorities to take proactive measure to save precious human lives and evacuate them from the threatened areas, when they are warned of the flooding type situations,” he said.
“Small dams are also not integrated while forecasting weather. We only monitor large dams and reservoir like Tarbela, Mangla and Chasma. It is the responsibility of local irrigation department to react promptly when they receive forecast, because they know exactly which dam is vulnerable to floods and heavy rains,” Awan added.
Zafar Iqbal, of National Disaster Management Program of UNDP, discussed the National Disaster Management Policy. He said it was prepared and handed over to the government in 2004 but implementation is still being awaited.
He said there is need to mainstream disaster management and correlate it with development. In the 90s, he said, 2224 people were killed and 1.24 million were affected because of floods. But half way through the current decade, Iqbal said, 8568 people have been killed.
Sarwar Bari, of Pattan, presented the politics and governance perspective of disaster management in Pakistan. He said Pakistan is a disaster prone country, where policy makers focus on relief and evacuation work, rather on early warning systems information.
Abdul Shakoor, of Rural Development Policy Institute, said under the new local government ordinance, disaster management is the responsibility of district governments, but their policy is limited to relief and evacuation. He said the disaster management should be linked with annual development plans with district specific risk-vulnerability atlas and five-year disaster preparedness plan.
Experts and civil society representatives threatened to opt for civil disobedience if the state’s failure to provide basic necessity like water continues. They demanded that water should be considered a basic human right, and not a luxury. The government was criticized for not prioritizing drinking water provision, and it was demanded that water should be managed as a public good under public domain.
Ali Qadir, chief executive of The Network for Consumer Protection, said the local government departments are responsible for drinking water distribution but there is no proper system available to monitor water quality.
Mustafa Talpur, from Action Aid, said water is a fundamental human right and it is the responsibility of the state to respect, protect and fulfill this right.
Fayaz Baqar, from UNDP, said there should be public hearings on the development schemes at all levels and there should be a public participation in the process.
Dr Altaf Anjum, from SDPI, said the people should take legal action against concerned departments in case of any causality due to water death.
The speakers termed Pakistan’s stock market as the most manipulated in the world, saying it has become a gamblers’ den, rather than investors’ heaven. They said that the small investors suffered during the bearish run because of their lack of knowledge about market mechanism and manipulation. However, they said the small investors would have been saved if there was a strong intervention from the regulator – Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan.
The government was urged to bring in reforms to stop gambling in the stock markets and making the regulation strict.
Dr Iftikhar Ahmad, chief executive officer of Black Stone Equities, said the SECP, brokers and analysts bear the responsibility to educate investors, but they have not played their due role effectively during the weeklong crisis in the stock market. He said the government’s silence was understandable, for it was bound to give the impression to the outside world that the upward trend represented the health of the economy.
He said most of the small investors are illiterate and totally dependant on the trends exhibited by the big investors, rather than calculating the risk factor on their own. Whenever the market goes down, the small investor suffers. “Pakistani stock market is the most manipulated market in the world,” he said, insisting that only the government and semi-government equities boosted the market while the rest remained unchanged.
Though the SECP failed to implement laws and the brokers and analysts kept investors in the dark, the blame rests with the investors who, according to Dr Iftikhar, acted out of “stupidity” and wasted their hard earned money through future trading. “Most of the people take stock exchanges as gambling houses. This perception should be undone by stopping future trading that has landed small investors into troubled waters,” he said.
Dr Iftikhar, who is also corporate member of Islamabad Stock Exchange, suggested that besides discouraging gambling in the stock market, the level of margin with brokers should be increased, culprits should be brought to justice across the board, and safety valves should be introduced.
Mutahir Sohail, of the PACE Investment and Securities, said the stock market is not friendly to small investors, as they are deceived whenever the market faced major crisis, like in 1994 and 2000.
The audience urged the authorities to appoint specialists and expert analysts to check the regular trends and formulate policies accordingly. The need to design an education program for when and where to invest was also emphasized for small investors.
Independent media analysts, non-government representatives and cable TV operators rejected the proposed amendments in the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) law, fearing it would create anti-competitiveness in the media industry.
PEMRA representative defended the move, saying the objective behind amending the law is to lift ban on cross media restrictions and to facilitate media house owners.
Mohsin Babbar, of SDPI, who facilitated the debate, said the proposed PEMRA amendments were never consulted with the relevant stakeholders for input. The amendment to give police more powers under the new proposed law was harshly criticized.
Defending the proposed amendments, Ali Jaffer, legal consultant of PEMRA, said the authority could not regulate the state-owned media channels. He confessed that PEMRA is not as effective as other regulatory authorities like NEPRA and PTA. Attributing it to the lack of capacity of PEMRA, he said the authority cannot control hundreds of illegal cable operators with the scant staff, but added that the amendments would give PEMRA more power to enforce the law at its own. He criticized the cable operators for violating the rights of broadcaster by airing advertisements, but it was pointed out that the government’s imposition of excise duty on these advertisements has given them legitimacy.
Matiullah Jan, media law analyst from Internews, said the proposed law was passed in the National Assembly without consultation with the stakeholders. He said some clauses were hastily incorporated just before presenting the bill to the NA standing committee, which reflects the ambiguity and unfairness on the part of the government.
Imran Nadeem, secretary Cable TV Operators Association of Pakistan, said they were shocked to know about the proposed amendments during the seminar. They were not aware that the proposed amendments would leave them at the mercy of media-illiterate local police.
The participants actively discussed the proposed law and were of the view that lifting the ban from cross media restrictions would promote and strengthen anticompetitive regime in the media industry.
Dr Altaf Anjum and Asim Sajjad Akhtar, the speakers at the seminar, opined that Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are not achievable under the prevailing politico-economic structure in Pakistan. They said the pro-poor indigenous policies are the only solution, without taking dictation from international powers, to reduce poverty. They also said poverty reduction is not possible through generalized Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP).
The seminar debate concluded that the “trickle down effect” philosophy would no longer work to provide clean drinking water, health facilities and education to the people, and to combat poverty.
Experts rejected the government claims of reduction in poverty. They said that programs like MDGs, PRSPs to reduce poverty are alien to the people of Pakistan, adding that they have the fundamental contradiction with the national policies. It was also pointed out that discontinued democratic and political process has negatively affected the efforts for a prosperous Pakistan.
The Centre for Capacity Building conducted a three-day training workshop for women on enhancing leadership skills.
Women, 51 per cent of Pakistan’s population, are equally important in all spheres of life. Unfortunately in the past women contribution in the nation building process and their achievements in various fields have been neglected and ignored. But in the 21st century, long-term sustainable development cannot be achieved without the contribution and participation of women.
A number of prominent and leading women and men from health departments, NGOs, and international donor agencies attended the workshop to enhance the leadership qualities.
The key points shared during the workshop were:
Training on monitoring and evaluation of projects is one of the specialized areas of SDPI’s Centre for Capacity Building.
Seven international level trainings have been conducted on it during 2004-05. Participants representing different government departments, ministries, national and international NGOs, international funding agencies and United Nations organizations from all over Pakistan, including Azad Kashmir, and Afghanistan, have attended these workshops.
SDPI has taken the initiative to conduct training workshops outside Islamabad in the provincial capitals. The first training was conducted in Peshawar on M & E of Projects in which 24 participants from NWFP, Punjab, Karachi, and Afghanistan participated. SDPI has also planned to conduct a training workshop on monitoring and evaluation of the projects in Quetta in August this year.
The workshop in Peshawar achieved the following objectives:
Dr Muhammad Irfan Khan conducted the EIA course, designed according to international pattern, at SDPI. Policy level managers and senior executives from national and international organizations attended the training workshop. For a practical exposure of social, economic and ecological dimensions of EIA, the participants conducted a half-day fieldwork of a proposed mega project place, in Islamabad.
The workshop mainly covered the following key points:
It was a repeat workshop on M &E of Projects on the demand of various national and international organizations, which are practically involved in projects monitoring and evaluation.
The workshop was based on the enriched experiences of the previous participants who were actively involved in the M&E of projects.
Twenty-four participants attended the workshop, and overall 170 participants have been professionally trained on M & E during the last six months.
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