ON March 2, an accountability court dismissed two references filed by the National Accountability Bureau against a former chairman and officials of the Capital Development Authority, thus absolving retired Brig Asad Munir, ex-member estate CDA, of all charges. Sadly, the decision was late by three years as Brig Munir had died by suicide on March 15, 2019, because of the humiliation he suffered at the hands of NAB investigators. But did that change anything in the way things are done in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan? No. If you want to know more, read on.

The secretary/registrar of the Pakistan Engineering Council has been writing one letter after another to the secretaries of various ministries, the chairman National Highway Authority (NHA) and chairman CDA to consider the price variations in engineering contracts and to not take any punitive action against firms for delayed or stalled works. The rationale behind this request is that the pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented price hike, and working on rates quoted a couple of years earlier has become unviable for firms involved in infrastructure projects. Over the last six months, the PEC and the Contractors Association of Pakistan have time and again requested the government for an amicable resolution of the issue, but their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Not only that, the respective departments have also started encashment of performance guarantees and the blacklisting of firms.

It appears that the government has not bothered to take the pandemic, which delayed the award of projects, the price hike or common sense into consideration. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that in the face of unusual circumstances, contracts cannot be viewed in the same manner as they are during normal times. If there is a massive earthquake damaging the entire city or a war breaks out affecting the whole country, one cannot expect contractors to meet deadlines or their buildings to stand tall. A case of special equities exists, and such matters should be resolved without having the need to take anyone to court. However, such an expectation of proactive decision-making in a country like Pakistan, which is being ruled by a bureaucracy that knows nothing but to toe the line, is asking for too much.

The babus are killing both time and dreams.

The Ministry of Planning Development & Special Initiatives under Asad Umar has reportedly been ‘thinking’ about constituting a high-level committee to work out a solution to this problem — which essentially means that they have opted to do nothing, not even look busy. So, if the ministry believes it will do ‘something’, it means the officials will waste as much time as possible in the hope that the issue will die down on its own. Those who go out of business will be well and truly down and out, while those who find themselves unemployed can go to extremes to stir up a debate on social media for a few weeks or, if very lucky, earn a tweet or two from the prime minister. The babus, pushing papers in government offices, would hardly be bothered; they will eventually retire thinking that they performed a national service when all they actually did was to kill time and dreams.

Take the example of NHA, as it is among the biggest public-sector departments dealing with infrastructure and engineering projects. Since it comes under the purview of the recently rated top-performing Ministry of Communications, one would expect it to do better. A cursory research shows that as many as 30 contractors have already approached the high court for relief, which reflects poorly on the performance of the department.

A trip from Lahore to Islamabad on the famous GT Road exposes the dilapidated condition of the road. Most maintenance contractors have failed to mobilise and have opted for litigation, but the top-performing minister seems oblivious to this issue, because, like most of the cabinet, he concerns himself with selective statistics, which are always misleading. They say virtue is to be feared more than vice because it is not subject to the regulation of one’s conscience. The PTI government thinks that it is doing an awesome job and that is what has caused things to go from bad to worse.

Lastly, the PEC chairman, who also happens to be a PTI MNA, requested a meeting with the prime minister a couple of months ago so that he could apprise him of the situation. But the prime minster has been busy with more pressing political matters. After all, anything related to good governance can wait until another suicide stirs up things for a couple of weeks. It reminds me of the following verses by Kaleem Ajiz: “Daaman pey koi chheent na khanjar pey koi dagh / Tum qatl karo ho key karamaat karo ho”(Neither a stain on sleeve nor a drop on the dagger / Is it a murder or a miracle that you do)? n

The writer is a former civil servant.
syedsaadatwrites@gmail.com
Twitter: @SyedSaadat55

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2022