As was expected, the super high-powered committee, formed on the orders of Big Chief President General Pervez Musharraf to tackle the oil spill and its consequent damage, is floundering.

The press has it that the chief of the Chief's committee, Sindh chief secretary Mutawakil Qazi, has complained that certain chiefs and their tribes are not cooperating. The member chiefs suggested, at their meeting on September 5, that "enquiry being conducted by the communications ministry should be shared with the committee" (meaning the Chief's committee). Question: under the provisions of which law?

The enquiry is being conducted by the POMMD (principal officer of the mercantile marine department) in terms of Section 471 of the Merchant Shipping Ordinance, 2001 : "Preliminary Enquiry into Shipping Casualties - (1) Whenever any principal officer receives, by notice as aforesaid or otherwise, credible information that a shipping casualty has occurred, he shall forthwith communicate in writing the information to the federal government and may proceed to make a preliminary enquiry into the casualty."

And, the communications secretary has already asked the director general, ports & shipping to conduct, at the same time, a second enquiry under section 47(2) of the same ordinance: "Notwithstanding the provisions of section 1, the federal government may appoint any person to hold a preliminary enquiry respecting any casualty." Question: How can two enquiries be held at the same time questioning the same witnesses?

At the chiefs' committee meeting on the 5th, all took "serious notice that the owner of the ship had not even visited the country where the disaster occurred." The owners and operators are all-seeing omniscient Greek gods and they know that if they step on Pakistani soil they are quite likely to be arrested and incarcerated and held to ransom, rightly or wrongly, under one or several of our pliant laws. They are not chronic masochists.

The owners of the salvors' 'sheerlegs 1501' (a lifting vessel required for wreck removal) have asked for guarantees that their vessel will not be detained or arrested, and they require such guarantees before they dispatch the vessel from Dubai. So far, none has materialized.

Compared to our big neighbour, the 'traditional enemy', we are exceedingly backward. Why have we not signed and ratified the various international conventions relating to oil spills, as have done all the sensible maritime countries of the world, including India?

'Traditional enemy' is additionally and importantly ahead of us also as regards rules and regulations pertaining to the age limits of oil tankers. Courtesy, excerpts from a news item regarding India in Platts Oilgram Price Report of August 12:

"The director-general of shipping has banned all crude, product and chemical tankers more than 25 years old from entering Indian waters from September 1. This ruling applies only to foreign-flagged tankers, with domestic tankers exempted.

"Separately, the ministry of petroleum has banned the four state-owned oil companies - Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation - from chartering vessels over 15-years old with effect from April 1 2004. This ruling applies to both domestic and foreign-flagged tankers.

"An official of Intertanko, an umbrella group which represents independent tanker operators, said that the DG's move to impose the regulations on foreign and not domestic tankers smacks of 'discrimination' . . . . . . . . When the European Union banned old single-hulled tankers from its waters the ban is applicable to both domestic and foreign-flagged tankers.

"The European Union is banning all single-hull (pre 1996) tankers from transporting heavy crude and fuel oil from October 2003 as part of tougher rules adopted after the tanker 'Prestige' spill off Spain in 2002.

"Under both new sets of [Indian] regulations, exceptions are made for tankers above the stipulated age limits of 15 and 25 years. These older vessels are required to have a 'Condition Assessment Programme 2' rating which certifies that the tanker is of a certain condition. The rating given by the International Classification Societies costs between USD 45,000 and USD 625,000 to obtain. Currently, none of the Indian shipping companies have CAP ratings for their tankers.

"The director general of shipping regulations require tankers above 20 years' old to have a CAP rating while the Petroleum ministry's rules make exceptions for tankers between 15 and 25 years of age if they have the CAP rating."

Now, what has our wise government done? In October 2002, it forced all our refineries to sign contracts of affreightment for a 10-year, repeat 10 year, period (an unheard of length of time) with the forever-losing never-to-be-viable Pakistan National Shipping Corporation. The imposed contract stipulates that "the tanker vessels by which the crude oil shall be transported pursuant to this agreement shall not be older than 25 years, except vessels under Pakistan flag in which case the maximum age will be 30 years," and that for the 10-year period the tankers to be used will "maintain a minimum average pumping rate of 2,220 tons per hour" [only !]. These ridiculous contracts should be scrapped and consigned to the WPB - which they would be were we to have a government with an ounce of sense.

Reverting to the Tasman Spirit, some officers and men of the ill-fated tanker, though not 'arrested' or 'detained', are not allowed to leave Pakistan as they are wanted here to answer questions at the enquiry to be held into the grounding and subsequent spill. The vessel grounded on July 27. How long are they to be our 'guests'? Is this fair ?

Fear, no doubt unfounded, is spreading among the many experts and representatives of P&I Clubs and other organizations involved in the spill and its consequences who are now in Pakistan that they too will not be allowed to leave. The government should immediately allay these fears.

The attention and care bestowed upon our environment can well be gauged from the fact that during the lost decade of the '90s, the federal minister of the environment was our prime minister's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, environmentalist par excellence.