DR Tahirul Qadri’s ‘long march’ and sit-in were followed by a debate that the Election Commission of Pakistan cannot declare anyone a defaulter in 30 days as the person can go to the court and take a stay against it.

But there is another issue/lame excuse about whether a person is a major or minor partner in the company. I give the following arguments against it.

A good business person with minor shareholding in a defaulting company will never blemish his reputation by retaining his shareholding in that company and getting his image damaged for his main business in which he is a majority shareholder.

A minor shareholder can have the controlling rights also and we need to see that person with minor shareholding has the controlling rights or not in the defaulting company.

In limited shareholding, a person will be responsible to the extent of his ownership. The value of the firm in the most conservative scenario can be judged by a chartered accountant of a good reputation and loss share of the contestant can be compared against the net worth statement of the contestant to see whether he will become bankrupt or not in case loss is declared.

Furthermore, if the cases are in courts, then the ECP is uncertain whether the decision will be in favour of the contestant or not.

So, a contingent liability should be created against the net worth of the contestant and most conservative scenario should be adhered to.

Moreover, is it possible for a person whose case is in the court to run in the elections? I feel that a wrong impression appears from the argument that we are very weak and our system does not allow us to change and it is our fate to tolerate the defaulters and characterless people.

Is the media afraid of bringing the facts to this nation by bringing up such notions? Does our media want to present the weak banking structure of Pakistan to the nation? If not, then I hope we need to rectify our records. We need to tell the people of Pakistan that the central bank regulations are so strong that still the banking industry is giving robust results despite severe depression.

We need to tell the people that this banking structure is strong enough that if no external forces influence it, it can very effectively and efficiently mobilise the monetary expansion, which is badly needed at this stage.

We need to reduce the interest rates and monitor strictly the usage of money in efficient channels in order to create employment opportunities.

If Moin Qureshi, in his tenure of 90 days, can print the list of defaulters and create havoc with politicians, then why can’t an independent ECP do the same?

JAWAD ZAFAR
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia