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Who will bell the cat? by Abid Ullah Jan Dec 14, 2002 “Our aims are as follows… We will reduce governmental expenditure radically… [accountability] will be swift and transparent. People will be identified who evade taxes, default on loans, and steal national wealth.” General Pervez Musharraf, speech to the nation October 17, 1999). (1) Evading taxes and defaulting loans are not the only crimes that rob the nation of its wealth. There are many forms of mismanagement and corruption. The community of political analysts and journalist community appeared to be astigmatically challenged when reports of unprecedented increase in expenditure of General Musharraf’s office were published in June 2002. However, despite producing all-accountability news-all-the-time since then, the issue of hair-raising mismanagement of public funds by the General Musharraf has been perfectly ignored by all concerned quarters. According to a comparative study, in a short span of three years the expenditure of General Musharraf’s so-called Chief Executive office, which used to be the prime minister's office, went up from less than Rs150 million to Rs874 million, showing an increase of over 486 per cent. Initially the government had raised the allocation to Rs572 million for the year 2001-02, but by the end of the year we came to know that the General could not help spending Rs303 million on top of the actual allocation. (2) Despite the fact that expenditure of the president’s office had remained less than the actual estimates during 2001-02, General Musharraf further increment in the light of his takeover of the president’s office. Allocations for Prime Minister’s office were, however, reduced in the budget for 2002-03. It is interesting to note that the amount allocated for the PM's office for 2002-03 is 60 per cent less than the original allocation and 74 per cent less than the actual spending or revised estimates. Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto have been cited by General Musharraf in various speeches as looters of public funds. No one can deny this reality. Nevertheless, we must not forget that putting national wealth in one’s pocket is not the only way to rob the nation. Squandering national resources on self-promotion also constitutes the same degree of crime. If we have the right to question fortunes of Nazwaz and Benazir, we also have the right to ask reasons for 100 per cent increase in spending at Chief Executive’s office – formerly Prime Minster’s office -- in the year of 1999-2000. The extent of damage can be judged from the fact that Gen Musharraf spent Rs324 million in the first year in the office of chief executive, Rs540 million in the second year and Rs875 million in the third year. Furthermore, the dictatorship-legitimising exercise of referendum was at least twice as expensive as the local bodies’ elections which cost Rs1.2 billion. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had initially estimated the cost of holding the referendum at a little over two billion rupees. The government, however, had to spend a lot more because it later decided to increase the number of polling stations and booths. The allowances for election staff had also been increased from the 200 rupees given in previous elections to 400 rupees each, plus another 200 rupees for meals. Similarly, the cost of the General's image-building has been enormous. Musharraf visited 23 places in 20 days to cover every nook and corner of Pakistan, addressing public rallies and meetings before referendum. Media reports suggest that the cost of just the first two meetings was to the tune of rupees 3.5 million. The official press information department alone sought an additional rupees 27.1 million for the two-week one-man publicity campaign. Millions of dollars were spent on following every political party from referendum up to the general elections for supporting Musharraf’s objective to prolong his stay in power. The task of holding parleys with various political parties was reportedly assigned to the country's premier civil and military intelligence agencies. According to some reports, between rupees 20,000 to 50,000 were given to each of the Union Council Nazims for campaigning on Musharraf's behalf. Is this not part of the now acceptable culture of loot and plunder of the public exchequer? These open secrets turned into embarrassment when a protest rally was actually taken out by the nazims of some of the Union Councils in Hyderabad district to complain that the amount of 20,000 rupees given to them for election campaigning was not enough. The protesting nazims were demanding that they too be given 50,000 rupees each as had been put at the disposal of some of their counterparts or else they would be unable to bring their voters on polling day. If we add the cost to be incurred on the recent October elections (to be around 2 billion), then the total cost of the General Musharraf’s adventure to abolish and then restore a shame democracy is a whopping 5.7 billion rupees. The amount does not include millions of dollars given to various individuals, such as Charlie Wilson, or firms such as Team Barakat, Sterling International Consulting Corp, and Rhoads-Weber Shandwick for lobbying General Musharraf’s cause in the US. What is the actual extent of damage already done and who is responsible for damage limitation and belling the cat are the questions need to be seriously discussed. Trying to shift attention from the clear and future danger of political leadership to the clear and present danger of plunder by General Musharraf might seem to be a thankless task. Yet we need not ignore mismanagement of our precious resources by those in power until it’s too late to recover. Hope we learn how to bell the cat and hope we are not to indefinitely suffer the unchecked plunder by leaders in power and their ignominious deals with corrupt leadership of the past. References: 1. Transcript Of Gen. Musharraf's Speech To Pakistan, Monday, 18 October 1999, 9:50 am, Alastair Thompson, Transcript from daily Dawn. 2. Staff report, back page, daily Dawn, June 16, 2002.
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