PML(N) and the performance The Nawaz Sharif government, Pakistan doesnt have a foreign minister, law minister and, among other ambassadors, ambassador for US but, that is not all: we don’t have Chief Election Commissioner, and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Chairman and we have yet to appoint honest individuals to the many government owned commercial concerns that the PML-N chief promised the nation before the general elections. One can well ask whether the above mentioned posts and positions are just decorative in nature or are the men and women intended to be appointed on these positions expected to do useful and necessary work. If these posts are decorative then why keep the charade; just abolish them. If these do serve some important purpose, then aren’t we, the nation, losing on this account. Is it not the incompetence of the central government that it is not doing what it should and for which it does not have the excuse of paucity of funds, for making these appointments are not going to cost much. The PML-N had promised us some new laws or replacement of the old ones necessary for the improvement of the situation in the country regarding corruption and waste of public resources; the main among these promised laws was to make a new law to set up a fresh body of accountability, with more teeth, to fight corruption. Where is that law? For the last four years the PML-N was fighting the PPP and accusing the then ruling party of impeding the passage of an effective law in this matter. The PML-N members of the parliamentary committee in the National Assembly prepared, at least, seven drafts of the law against corruption. As such, it does not have to even prepare a fresh law and all it has to do is table one of the drafts. Now that it is in majority and it can pass the anti-corruption law, why is it not being brought on the floor of the parliament to pass it? It is a good question and the PML-N men who used to crowd the TV channels in favour of this law during PPP government are missing in action and not available for comments on the delay by the Nawaz government in this matter. After a few well advertised attempts to catch the big electricity and Sui gas thieves, there is complete silence on this front, also. We don’t know if the owners and managers of the factories and mills and the staff of the gas and electric companies who helped these industrialists steal these items from the nation are in jail or sleeping peacefully without the worry of being punished for their crimes. We don’t even know whether after these advertised moments the theft by the thieves has begun again or is there somebody on the lookout that it does not happen again: with dead silence on this front one is apt to believe that all these scenes of catching the energy thieves were Kodak moments for the nation to remember and retain a good impression of the ruling party. There are as many kundas hanging from the live wires of the main electricity lines used to steal electricity as there were during PPP government in Karachi, Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Lahore, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Gujrat, Quetta, Peshawar, Hangu, Bunnu and many other cities and villages all over the country. But instead of removing these illegal connections and squeezing the defaulters of electricity bills to give the four hundred and forty billion rupees, the government is raising the power rates for the honest consumers. The natural gas line losses which should not be more than two percent have reached to eleven percent and the PML-N government spokespersons are blaming the old pipelines instead of pointing out and catching the big and small gas thieves. Ishaq Dar promised a huge raise in the national tax receipts and said the government will collect a trillion rupees more than the PPP government did but in August its tax receipts fell short by 29 billions from the target for that month. The minister for electricity Khawaja Asif, one of the senior most and respected leaders of the PML-N had promised to drastically reduce the subsidy on gas given to fertilizer plants but after four months all he could say in the Supreme Court was that the government was considering the issue. But most of all, Khawaja Asif in a case against the PPP government had said in the Supreme Court that only Nepra had the authority to raise electricity rates and then the government, he is a part of, went on to ignore this very important institution and it was his ministry which illegally raised the electricity tariff. The Supreme Court, however, struck down the order but Khawaja Asif is not done yet. He will try to give unbearable hike to the power rates through Nepta. A few of the appointments made by the Nawaz government were also revoked by the apex court. It was the case of this government knowingly violating the law of the land. With so many broken promises and show of apathy towards the problems of the ordinary people, no wonder that the government is fast losing credibility with the masses. It is tragic the PML-N leaders who gave the impression, before the general elections, that they had full knowledge of the crisis the country was in and had devised ways and means to solve the nations problems, are proving to be incompetent to a great degree. Or maybe, they knew, better than the PPP leaders, how to talk smart and honest in the run for the elections, while they, the PML-N people, were no better than the then ruling party. The failures of PML-N government are many and it does not make one happy to count these, as the failure of this government, or any elected government, is the failure of the nation. goodmorningfp@yahoo
Posted on: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 16:03:12 +0000
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