Phony pilots —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

Nationalities are denied rights in the name of religion and state ideology, people go missing on flimsy grounds, minorities live under threat and police brutality continues unabated

Eventually the Corendon Airlines
Boeing 737 phony pilot’s luck ran out. He had fooled the Turkish airline with fake credentials, like our rulers I would say, for two years before being arrested in Amsterdam moments prior to taking off with 101 passengers. He said he had been flying for 13 years on a false licence and had spent at least 10,000 flying hours in the cockpit. He served airlines in Belgium, Great Britain and Italy.

For a moment imagine while flying on a Boeing 737 you are told that the pilot flying you should not be flying it at all because he is phony. Terror and panic would overcome most and many would become hysterical. A May Day alert would be sounded to get the airports ready.

The people of this country have been in a similar situation for as long as I can remember. The plane of our state has been piloted by grossly inept phony pilots, who by deceit and sometimes with the help of the Brigade 111 have made the people believe that they could fly them safely but have landed us in an irremediable mess.

Though space constraints severely limit the arguments I can present to back this analogy, but I will give it a try. A ten-year review, Human Development in South Asia by Mahbub-ul-Haq of the Human Development Centre in 2007 said, “A little over 73 percent of Pakistanis still live below the poverty line with the percentage of rural poor registering an increase and the share of South Asia in the total number of poor in the world has increased significantly from 40 percent in 1993 to 47 percent in 2004.The progress in life expectancy in Pakistan during the last 10 years is the lowest in the region. Percentage of malnourished children under five years of age remains stagnant at 38 percent compared to 40 percent in 1994.

“Maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births increased significantly from 340 deaths in 1993 to 500 deaths in 2000. Incidence of tuberculosis per 100,000 increased from 150 in 1995 to 181 in 2004. Public spending on health as percentage of GDP also went down from 0.8 percent in 1995 to 0.4 percent in 2004.”

The situation has worsened since and Pakistan’s 137th place in the UN’s Human Development Index proves it. Poverty is the silent tsunami that is inexorably swamping this country but our rulers are oblivious to it.

Shahid Javed Burki recently wrote, “The rate of increase in GDP in 2009-10 was about two percent. For the current year, even the more optimistic government officials do not expect the rate of increase to be more than 3.5 percent.” He adds, “While I have not seen a recent estimate of the efficiency of the Pakistani economy my guess is that in the current situation the Incremental Capital Output Ratio (ICOR) is perhaps as high as five to six. This means that the country has to invest five to six percent of GDP to produce a one percent increase in GDP.”

Here the major part of GDP goes to the armed forces and debt servicing; most of the rest is spent needlessly like the Rs 40 million on Zardari’s personal residence in Sector F-8 in Islamabad. So, where will the money come from for infrastructure development and people’s welfare?

Pakistan’s external debt rose to an unprecedented $ 55.68 billion as of December 31, 2009 from $ 52.33 billion on June 30, 2009 due to loans received from the IMF and other donor agencies. Pakistan’s external debt liabilities of $ 55.68 billion form 32 percent of its GDP. Syed Mohammad Ali (‘Pakistan’s further shackling by debt’, Daily Times, February 2, 2010) wrote, “Pakistan’s total external debt, which is more than twice its internal debt, is currently estimated to grow by more than 43 percent over the next five years. According to the IMF, our external debt will increase by another $ 2 billion in 2011-12 and exceed $ 72 billion by 2015-16.” An inescapable debt-trap. A finance ministry report disclosed that the total debt has now reached Rs 810 billion, of which Rs 401 billion was internal debt. National debt has reached 54.1 percent of GNP or 370 percent of total national resources.

Inflation has risen by a massive 36.3 percent since 2008, with wheat flour and sugar prices rising by 83 and 168 percent respectively and petroleum product prices being raised 19 times. The eight perennially inefficient public sector enterprises like PIA, Pakistan Steel Mills, etc., gobble up Rs 250 billion annually and show no signs of recovery. Now PIA is seeking the conversion of non-fleet loans worth Rs 45 billion and worth $ 250 million; the PSO needs Rs 50 billion to avoid defaulting.

To show how incompetent, inept and bungling the rulers here are, let’s see the performance of a multinational to highlight the contrast. By the way, I am not enamoured of multinational companies. In 2008, Exxon Mobil reported the largest annual profit in US history, making $ 45.22 billion, which comes to $ 1,434 a second. It reported total revenue of over $ 477 billion, just over $ 1.3 billion daily in 2008. In 2005, Exxon Mobil’s worldwide workforce was 84,000 employees but now it is 80,000. In 2005 it paid $ 12 billion in salaries and benefits to them.

The rulers, using fake credentials of saviours and populists like the Corendon Airlines phony pilot, have been flying the 737 (read Pakistan) and putting the lives of passengers (people) at risk. Little wonder then that the people have had a rough time. Sadly there has never been remorse at or accountability for the repeated disasters. Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.

The flight data recorder (history) bears witness that these phony flight managers have messed up things irredeemably. It is not that the people have suffered due to economic mismanagement only. Nationalities are denied rights in the name of religion and state ideology, people go missing on flimsy grounds, minorities live under threat and police brutality continues unabated. The whole value system has seen an irreversible downturn. Rights continue to be trampled upon and in spite of showcased freedom, journalists suffer for having opinions.

The gyroscope and the compass were dysfunctional from the beginning; consequently navigation has been in shambles. Recovery for a correct flight path and safe flying seems a remote possibility. Maybe in the future the real reasons for malfunctioning will be divulged from the forensic examination of the ‘black box’.

Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur has an association with the Baloch rights movement going back to the early 1970s. He can be contacted at mmatalpur@gmail.com