The economics of ignorance

Governments are not answerable to anyone either for their inefficiency or their inadequate performance. With nearly forty years of serving the country one comes to the conclusion that there are a number of missing elements in governance. The good-bad governance is now a barren argument. There is no way that the TV channel can determine for the country what falls under either category. The distinction between state and government has been obliterated. The idiocy of the government and the opposition now does not matter. Both sectors are now in 'loot khasoot' syndrome. Whenever one goes to Lahore there are new facts that Lahories provide a sure sign of a healthy society. This time I met a gentleman who had recently arrived from Turkey. I had been to Turkey when things were not so rosy. Now its leaders are building a new palace with I am told one thousand rooms for a small sum of 100 million dollars. The White House after all has a hundred rooms. We have to do it better.
The Turkey man has to be protected for after all he should not be punished for providing information that could be damaging. A Pakistani has registered a firm in Turkey. Who could dare this? The idea is to spin all Turkey-based projects through this firm giving the information that the work has been outsourced to a Turkish firm when in fact the firm belongs to a Pakistani. How's that? Who's that? Your guess is as good as mine. The chances are that the poor structure in Pakistan is again working out new ways of corruption. When the need is to hide some aspects of public life you can be damn sure that it is crooked. So is the case with the siblings. Where and what are his nocturnal activities? In a society that is given to strict actions the case would be referred to the law courts for determining right from wrong.
But there are serious issues of ignorance or wrongdoings. The rural areas of Pakistan are under stress due to floods and what have we the ignorant trying to go on a fact-finding mission by travelling over the areas in a helicopter? What will they achieve? Do they understand the water system? Can they work out the sums sitting in the helicopter? The CMs have done it. What are they doing in another country or found missing in their own country; laying all sorts of intrigues directing flood relief from a laptop.
The TV stations are equally ignorant of the reasons. In agriculture the blame is always laid on the weather conditions and this time the floods have also been placed on the weather. There is much that can be done. The natural resource base has been slowly and steadily eroded in the last decade. What is the equation like? Well, we have lost about three million hectares to urbanization and the productivity in agriculture has not been allowed to overcome the land shortage. Even at the given rates of productivity the growth rate has to be over five percent. If not we will be importing most of our stuff from elsewhere. Onions came to us from Afghanistan and India provides most of the stuff in respect of vegetables and fruits.
Agriculture is not our priority and neither is livestock. But the weather needs more informed intervention. What we do in the mountains ultimately reflects in the plains. KB and Bhasha dams are not the answer to the release of water in the dry river beds that are with India. Beas and Ravi waters cannot be taken through KB. The irrigation department engineers know this. Even if the decision is taken the two dams will add a colossal burden to the already difficult foreign exchange issues. With the currency in the pits of the world we have no recourse but to fulfil the egos of the political bosses to expenditure that is not progressively better for the common person. Poverty is rampant but the political bosses have never had hunger pains and so what can they do. Their palates and their plates are full with luxury items.
So what can be done to eradicate or lessen the damage caused by floods? There are a number of matters that need attention. First, there is a need to take measures for water shed management. In the 1980s I wrote to the then Wapda chairman telling him that the German project that was given for water shed management should be taken jointly by the irrigation and agriculture departments. He did not heed my warnings. Today Tarbella has lost its 50% capacity and KB is only a replacement for the lost capacity of that dam. Then came Sardar Tariq and two of his friends whom I rated as knowledgeable but I was sorely disappointed when they also failed the country.
I ask these goons that they explain the studies done on Bhasha and KB. The people that are talking about these dams have never visited these sites; drawing- room experts that know nothing about the culture of water in these areas. There are very serious ownership issues in Bhasha and the KB dam is a non-starter. The Punjabi [and I am one of them] is at the heart of this controversy. We have stepped on so many provincial toes and in such a blatant manner that there is no way that the minor provinces can trust us. Ghulam Ishaq Khan once asked me why the irrigation secretaries are transferred with such frequency. All these secretaries were classmates at the engineering university and they voluntarily relinquished their posts. Money making is endemic. Bhasha dam site is extremely difficult. The cost will be more than 30 billion dollars. KB has the same costs but then I have documents that suggest that the Britishers thought of this dam and then gave it up.
The planning document has all the drawings and sections done by an executive engineer of the time [1924]. It puts to shame all the feasibility reports that I have seen by these consultants. What is the tree structure that you need for containing soil loss and water drainage. If the plant has a stem of one foot then its root structure is to be four feet in the minimum. Such plants exist in the wild in Chitral and in GB. But the humans are bereft of all knowledge on these issues. They are busy looking after their unborn grandchildren. So what is required is a massive sea change or a profound transformation in the system.