Daily Excelsior... Editorial

EDITORIAL

By K.N. Pandita
Ever since the formation of OIC, Pakistan has been using this platform day in and day out for painting India in the darkest colours in regard to ‘Islamic’ Kashmir. The OIC...more

Made for each other:
Benazir, Musharraf

By M Rama Rao
No longer a conjecture it is. Nor is it talked about in hushed tones. Probably by the time this piece appears in print, and you get down to reading it, the writing on the wall will become a reality. But, for days and months to come, .....more

People peeved with Governments

By Mohinder Singh
People everywhere are peeved with governments. There is rising dissatisfaction with the bureaucratic functioning of governments. And people have grown increasingly critical of higher taxes that they attributed to .....more

EDITORIAL

CORRUPTION ENDORSED?

The Opposition demand: A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe into the shady defence deals following the Tehelka expose. The Vajpayee Government’s response: No. And the general public assessment: Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, has indirectly endorsed the corruption that had been going on in the Government for years. In a personal communication with the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, recently, Vajpayee had agreed for formation of a JPC. This was followed by the Congress party agreeing to allow the passage of the Union and Railway budgets for the year, a formality absolutely necessary to have the country’s financial system in order. However, when overwhelming members of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentary party expressed unequivocal opposition to the idea, Vajpayee rejected the demand for a JPC probe. Not only has he given credence to the feeling that massive corruption is involved in defence deals, but also has slighted a parliamentary tradition of respecting a legitimate request of the Opposition to probe something as questionable as the Tehelka expose. The rejection of the demand to form a JPC by the Prime Minister, however, came right at the last minute when the Opposition could do little to stall any proceedings of the Lok Sabha to press for the JPC. Thus, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government has succeeded in keeping the Opposition at bay at best for some time. However, for this violation of good faith, an essential ingredient of parliamentary functioning, the NDA, some Opposition leaders anticipate, will soon pay a "very heavy price" not only in the Assembly elections in Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry but also later on as it struggles to keep itself safe despite the ugly expose of the shady defence deals indulged in by its cronies. Perhaps, while rejecting the demand for a JPC, the Prime Minister did not realise the serious implications of what he was doing. Vajpayee, Sonia Gandhi says, had given a clear word to her that he would form a JPC to probe the truth in the Tehelka expose if she directed her party MPs to allow smooth passage of the Union and Railways budgets. By his own word, Vajpayee should have shown the courage to initiate formation of a JPC despite the opposition from his own party. That would have enhanced his image as a great parliamentarian. However, he chose to act as an ordinary politician by going back on his own word and violate a great parliamentary practice. The angry outbursts of Sonia Gandhi seconds after the Lok Sabha Speaker, GMC Balayogi, adjourned the session sine die required to be viewed in this light. The Leader of Opposition felt cheated and said so to the Home Minister, LK Advani, who crossed over to exchange pleasantries with her following the end of the session. Other Congress leaders also rightly expressed their anger over the deception indulged in by the Prime Minister himself and the ruling National Democratic Alliance. The Prime Minister has found it convenient to forget how his own party had stalled the parliamentary proceedings on several occasions for days on end and how it had pressed for a Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Bofors issue. On those occasions, the behaviour of the BJP MPs was most reprehensible kicking up in the process a nationwide sense of disgust and despair. Now the same man is trying to raise a question on the behaviour of the Congress party in a similar situation. Disruption of parliamentary proceedings is certainly unwelcome, but the violation of good faith by the ruling party is a greater sin by any standard. If the ruling NDA in general and the BJP in particular are so sure that there is nothing hanky-panky in the defence deals, they should have allowed a JPC. But the fact that they opposed the idea gives rise to a strong feeling that they know that there are skeletons in their cupboard. The Tehelka tapes revealed corruption in high places. The Opposition in general and the Congress in particular seemed to think that they finally found stick with which to beat the Government out of office. But what is the alternative? Will the Opposition be able to put up a ragtag coalition and run the Government for the remaining years of the Lok Sabha? Will another election result in a decisive majority for any party? The answer is ‘no’. The basic malady afflicting the body politic is the absence of any towering national figure. We have only factional leaders. Atal Behari Vajpayee began well and could have joined the ranks of Lal Bahadur Shastri and C Rajagopalachari but for the Tehelka expose. The goings-on might not have been of his own doing, but of those close to him. Why do even mature politicians develop a weakness for a relative or friend, knowing full well that in their position they have to be above personal loyalties and considerations? The effect of the Tehelka revelations on the Army’s morale cannot be ignored. Think of the soldier at the coldest ‘hot’ frontier in the Himalayas, fighting not only the enemy but also nature. Think of him reflecting on what is happening in the air-conditioned comfort of the headquarters and in the Defence Ministry. Would he still be fired by patriotism for his country?

AWFUL NEGLECT

Generations to come will never forgive the cavalier manner and the naked disregard for future with which we treat our natural resources. That is, if the future generations happen to survive the mess that the present ones are creating for them. The seizure of a number of tiger and panther skins from traffickers in Delhi having international links points to the fact that as a society we still do not have any regard for what can be done. Had this been an isolated incident, it could be overlooked as something that happens. Far from it, the incident is part of a trend that has become more pronounced in recent years. From all over the country, police and forest staff are reporting increased seizure wildlife trophies like the present ones. Sometimes it is the skin, sometimes it is the parts of higher carnivora. However, those are not the only animals dying. For every tiger or a panther that falls prey to poachers, there are scores of lesser wildlife like deer and wild boars and rabbits and fowls the killing of whom is neither detected nor makes headlines. Nor is it that every killing of even higher carnivores and herbivores like elephants, bisons, and rhinoceroses is detected and the culprits nabbed. Given the efficiency with which Indian law enforcement agencies detect the crimes against even human beings, one can only imagine the detection rate in crimes against nature. More often than not, it is the black sheep among those who are charged with protecting the flora and fauna who get into active collusion with the poachers and help them along. Many a time they themselves turn poachers. After a period of relatively successful two decades following the enactment of Wildlife Protection Act in 1971, the Indian conservation efforts are once again showing sings of decay and corruption. The launch of Project Tiger in 1973 had signalled the start of one of the most successful conservation programmes in the world. It helped increase the tiger population in the country from a low of a couple of thousand to nearly 5,000. Since tiger sat at the very top of the forst food chain, protecting tiger meant protection of the forest as a whole. In order to support the carnivore population, a good herbivore population was necessary. And to maintain that, good water management in the forest becomes essential. This model was to be used for protecting other major species as well. While the Project Tiger was successful, the need was to build on this success. Instead, somewhere the effort began to seriously wrong. In the ‘90s of last century, increased population, growing economy that fuelled greater consumption, and plain old corruption as well as complacence began to take their toll on Indian forests. The Ministry of Environment and Forests had planned Project Elephant for the southern, eastern, and north-eastern parts of the country who house major populations of Asian elephants. Project Snow Leopard was to be launched in the upper reaches of the Himalayas where the elusive white leopard is counting days to its extinction. These projects never really got started.

OIC : The policy of complacency?

By K.N. Pandita

Ever since the formation of OIC, Pakistan has been using this platform day in and day out for painting India in the darkest colours in regard to ‘Islamic’ Kashmir. The OIC members have been wittingly or unwittingly endorsing anti-India resolutions drafted and sponsored by Pakistan in the annual and intermittent meetings of the organisation. The OIC justifies this action claiming to be the custodian of the interests of the Muslim world over.

But the OIC never says a word about 20 million Kurds of Sunni faith who are denied homeland by Turkey, Iraq and Iran, all Muslim states and members of OIC. It speaks not a word about 23 million Mohajirs of Sunni faith in urban Sindh (Pakistan) who are treated nothing better than dhimmis by the Punjabi oligarchy.

They do not speak a word about a million and half Muslims of Northern Areas in Pakistan occupied Kashmir who are the only people in the world not rued and administered by constitution and recognised law. Yet the OIC claims to be the custodian of the interests of the Muslim world over.

Kashmiri insurgent leadership is proud of Afghan Taliban fighting their war against the Indian security forces. They call it an Islamic jihad. Let us here summarise very succinctly a leaf or two from Ahmad Rashid’s monumental work Taliban that tell us the story of the capture of the northern town of Mazar-e-Sharif by Taliban militias in 1998 by the forces of the Amiru’l-Momineen.

In response to Taliban persuasion of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to back them in a major offensive to take the north, the Saudi intelligence chief Turki met with Mulla Omar in Kandahar in mid – June. Following this Saudis provided Taliban with 400 pick-up trucks. Pakistan’s ISI prepared a budget of some 2 billion rupees ($ 5 million) for logistical support. A thousand new Pakistani and Afghan recruits from refuge camps and madrassas arrived to enlist with the Taliban. In July, the Taliban swept northwards capturing Maimaneh after routing Dostam’s forces and capturing 100 tanks and vehicles and some 800 Uzbek soldiers – the majority of whom they massacred. Some important field commanders of Dostum accepted bribes from Taliban and surrendered. Dostum fled to Uzbekistan. About 1,500 strong Hazara force outside the city was taken by surprise and besieged by the Taliban. The Taliban butchered only 100 of them survived and the rest. Then followed a brutal massacre of the civilian population. Mulla Omar had given the victorious Taliban permission to kill only for two hours but actual killing continued for two days. "The Taliban went on a killing frenzy, shooting to the left and right in the narrow streets of Mazar-e-Sharif and killing everything that moved – shop owners, carat pullers, women and children shoppers and even goats and donkeys. Contrary to all injunctions of Islam, which demands immediate burial, bodies were left to rot on the streets. No one was allowed to bury the corpses for the first six days. Dogs were eating human flesh and going mad and soon the smell became intolerable,

As people ran for shelter to their homes, Taliban soldiers barged in and massacred Hazara households wholesale. People were shot three times on the spot, one bullet in the head, one in the chest and one in the testicles. After the first full day of indiscriminate killing, the Taliban reverted to targeting the Hazaras. They had enlisted local Pashtoons as guides. Over the next two days, these Pashtoon fighters from Balkh guided Taliban search parities to the homes of Hazaras who are Shia by faith. Thousands of Hazaras were taken to Mazar jail and when it was full, they were dumped in containers, which were locked, and the prisoners allowed to suffocate. Some containers were taken to the Dashti-Laili desert outside Mazar and the inmates massacred there.

They brought three containers from Mazar-e-Sharif to Shiberghan. When they opened the door of one truck, only three persons were alive. About 300 were dead.

The Taliban aimed to cleanse the north of the Shia. Mulla Niazi, the commander who had ordered Najibullah’s murder, was appointed Governor of Mazar-e- Sharif and within hours of taking the city, Taliban mullah were proclaiming from the city’s mosques that the city’s Shia had three choices – conversion to Sunni Islam, leave for Shia Iran or die. All prayer services conducted by the Shia in the mosques were banned. In the words of the Roman historian Tacitus," the Roman army created a desolation and called it peace."

The UN and the ICRC later estimated that between 5,000 and 6,000 people were killed. It subsequently became clear that along the route of the Taliban advance similar massacres of Uzbeks and Tajiks had taken place in Maimana and Shibergan. My own estimate is that as many as between 6,000 and 8,000 civilians were killed in July and August 1998.The Taliban targeted one more group in Mazar-e-Sharif. A small Taliban unit led by Mulla Dost Muhammad and including several Pakistani militants of the anti-Shia Sipah-e-Sahaba party entered the Iranian Consulate in Mazar, herded 11 Iranian diplomats, intelligence officers and a journalist into the basement and then shot them dead.

At first the Taliban refused to admit the whereabouts of the diplomats but then as international protests and Iranian fury increased, they admitted that renegade Taliban had killed the diplomats, not on official orders. Reliable sources said that Dost Mohammad had spoke to Mulla Omar on his wireless to ask whether the diplomats should be killed and Omar had given the go-ahead. Rue or not the Iranians certainly believed this. Ironically Dost Mohammed later wound up in jail in Kandahar, because he had brought back two Hazara concubines and his wife in Kandahar complained to Mulla Omar. Some 400 Hazara women were kidnapped and taken as concubines by the Taliban. This was communicated by an international official who interviewed inmates of Kandahar jail."

This rendering of a brutal and barbaric story by a journalist of international fame and credibility should be an eye opener to those in Kashmir who are dying to bring Talibanisation to their land. The OIC members who generously and frugally respond to the India-bashing of Pakistan would do well to look first into their own glass houses. Why don'’ their hearts bleed for the Hazaras of Mazar-e- Sharif and Bamiyan and Herat and other places in Afghnistan? Certainly their definition of ‘Muslims’ is something beyond comprehension.

Made for each other: Benazir, Musharraf

By M Rama Rao

No longer a conjecture it is. Nor is it talked about in hushed tones. Probably by the time this piece appears in print, and you get down to reading it, the writing on the wall will become a reality. But, for days and months to come, will linger the question: Why did Benazir Bhutto, the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the dogged fighter, compromise with the Generals and propose to make Pervez Musharraf the President of Pakistan?

It is true commonality of interests have brought the People's Party of Pakistan (PPP) leader, who had earned the nickname Perpetually Pregnant Prime Minister, and the Mohajir General who seized power in a bloodless coup two years ago. The General is searching for legitimacy to his rule. And the PPP lady formal rehabilitation of her husband Asif Ali Zardari, who is languishing in jail. Wily Nawaz Sharif had framed the Mr Fifty percent in his bid to corner Benazir politically.

Benazir appears to have a taken the initiative for rapproachment with the Army. While it is difficult to fix a date for the contact, it was certain that the first moves were made after Nawaz was exiled to Saudi capital along with his family. Nawaz Sharif surprised his friends and foes alike by buying peace with the Musharraf regime after all the brave talk he made from the Attock Fort prison.

In fact, there was no reason to suspect that Nawaz was upto something of a deal with the army till he was packed off one fine morning before sun set. He made Kulsoom Nawaz take over the reins of Pakistan Muslim League (PML - Nawaz faction) and joined forces with arch rival Benazir and the grand old man of opposition politics, Nasrullah Khan.

The Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) was a formidable combination of big and small parties. The businessman turned politician, obviously used, without hesitation, the potential of the Alliance to unnerve the junta for the eventual trade off he managed. Nawaz has been a role model to many politicians who are keen on making it big with the least effort. His own PML has produced many Nawaz clones, who are trying to be on the right side of army junta. That suits the military brass too, which finds in PML an easy prey for certain His Majesty's Loyal Opposition is not germane to our discussion. More so, when our focus is on the lady from Larkana, the Bhuttoo's pocket borough in the Sindh. Sindh province, particularly, its main hub, Karachi, have been nursing a grievance against Islamabad for years. The Federal system of governance has failed to take deep roots in Pakistan due to a variety of reasons. Religion could have been a cementing force since the country was founded on the basis of two-nation theory. It did not. That is because religion can become the opium of the masses if only life is normal, not when a every day is a struggle for survival for hungry stomachs and parched throats. Successive rulers failed to realise this truism and instead allowed the feudal Punjab dominate all walks of life-government, army et al.

When Musharraf seized power from a discredited regime, people looked upto him for deliverance. Sadly, success eluded him till date. Economy is refusing to look up. Water famine is staring at his face with almost daily riots across Balochistan and the Sindh. His decision to push to the back burner the Kalabagh dam has not earned him any brownie points.

So, for the General in the driver's seat, an ally like Benazir with roots in the Sindh is something akin manna. How effective she would prove to be in the long run in containing the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Jiye Sindh Qaumi Maha (ISQM), which have made common cause, will be interesting to watch.

At this point of time, what interests is the fact that Benazir Bhutto needs Musharraf as much as the latter needs her props to sustain himself and his rule. Over the past few months both have been systematically working at building bridges of understanding. They are also trying to sensitise the public opinion, yes, very unobtrusively.

The PPP leader took the public position that she would prefer Musharraf any day to Nawaz, certainly after careful deliberation and after sounding her trusted lieutenants. This remarks she made in the course of an interview to an Indian journalist a month ago was followed up with some astute moves. The Bamiyan vandalism indulged in by a desperate Taliban came in handy to Banazir.

On the one hand, through a syndicated column she projected herself to the western world as the liberal face around that can save Pakistan from Clerics who are out to create a Caliphate in her country. On the other hand, she has let it be known to the military ruler that she can be counted upon in his scheme of things for the future and that she is prepared to come back home at short notice, at least by August when the local bodies elections would be over.

Undoubtedly, she counted on the fact that the public memory is short. Otherwise she would have a little more less strident on the Taliban factor. After all, how many remember that it was her Government, in its bid to checkmate the army and the ISI that had pampered and promoted the Taliban. Her pitch for the high moral ground has received a boost from an unexpected quarter. May be, rather inadvertently! The MQM, a once upon a time ally of Benazir, cautioned the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) early this month that Pakistan could meet the fate of Bamiyan Buddhas unless a rescue act is put in place quickly.

Musharraf has already set in motion his own version of genuine democracy and is hold 'party-less' elections to create a new multi-tier power structure from the village to the provincial capitals. While other parties are fiddling the thumbs, Benazir has allowed her PPP members to enter the fray and this has helped her achieve two objectives: to move closer to her once hate symbol and to park her loyal cadre at a vantage position in the emerging power equations.

The Supreme Court's detailed verdict on April 18 saying the conviction of Benazir and her husband in a corruption case slapped by the Nawaz Sharif regime was not fair came as the crowning glory of the behind scene efforts to cement the deal between Benazir and Musharraf. Offer of support ot Musharraf to become President annouced by PPP central executive member Khurshid Shah (since endorsed by Benazir herself) is a natural corollary.

His rider - PPP will determine the terms of support and Musharraf must give up plans to give constitutional role for army in power sharing are the politician's bluff to cover an embarrassment. Nothing much should be read into these remarks but should be taken in the stride.

In fact, it is the Supreme Court verdict that takes the lid off the Benazir - Musharraf deal. No fieri facias is needed for Pakistan judges who willingly endear themselves to the executive by taking a fresh oath every time the ruler decrees. One can only pity Abdul Qayyum Malik, the Lahore High Court judge. He had convicted Benazir and her husband on April 27, 1998 and two days later, on April 30, received the fancied diplomatic passport for himself and his wife from Nawaz Government.

Malik's certainly not an isolated case in Pakistan. Without official connivance, his misdemeanour would not have become talk of the town three years after he helped friend Nawaz Sharif, presently licking wounds in Saudi Arabia.

The judicial imprimature on Musharraf coup is another classic example of "We breathe at your pleasure syndrome'. Chief Justice Irshad Hasan Khan's call to hold general elections before October next year (As directed by the apex court while validating the Musharraf coup) has to taken with a broad grin and shrug. Why did he feel it necessary to recall the verdict in his foreward to the Supreme Court's annual report?

Like Benazir and like Musharraf, Justice Hasan Khan may be sending a message of reassurance to the outside world. Because, like Benazir and like Musharraf, he too has a stake in the scheme of things that is taking shape. Till another General comes the way and makes a Malik of him. (Syndicate Features)

People peeved with Governments

By Mohinder Singh

People everywhere are peeved with governments. There is rising dissatisfaction with the bureaucratic functioning of governments. And people have grown increasingly critical of higher taxes that they attributed to wastage in government.

It is hard to imagine, but some fifty years back the word bureaucrat meant something positive; it connoted someone efficient, impartial, methodical. Now it's almost synonymous with red tape, delays, insensitivity, arrogance, even harassment and corruption. ''The world is no longer tidy for nit-picking, face-saving, bean-counting bureaucrats''. Take our own IAS. They may be holding on to most positions of power in the bureaucratic set-up but their public image has taken a severe beating in the last 25 years.

It's even becoming fashionable to be ''anti-government''. Yet governments are needed. No civilized society can function effectively without an effective government. The problem is with the bureaucratic model, suited to the slow-paced era of the past. It's proving hopelessly inadequate and inappropriate in these times of rapid changes.

Yet changing the model is a daunting task. Many still see government as something fixed, something that does not change. ''The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones,'' remarked Maynard Keynes, the noted economist.

In everyday living, the general public is concerned foremost with two aspects of government: the quality of its services, and in lower taxes. Taxes are the markup on the price that goes to the treasury, and bribes are the markup that goes into the pockets of the monopolists-bureaucrats, politicians, and businessmen benefitting from shortages or lack of consumer choice.

Quality of a service, whether it's electricity or water supply, public transport or traffic control, sanitation or upkeep of roads, is determined by customers. But few people in government use the word customer. Whereas business has to please customers to get at their money, government departments utilities are largely cusotmer blind, they get their money from taxes or monopoly charges. Little wonder the functioning of public services and utilities stays markedly inefficient, often corrupt. Wastage is high and customer satisfaction low.

The only successful formula to remedy this situation to any significant degree is to give customers choice instead of monopoly services, empower customers not bureaucrats. Choice in the provision of government goods and services also has the effect of driving down bribes. Even something like the issue of driving licences can be handled by more than one agency to keep bribes down. The concept of multiple agencies is finding increasing favour in various countries.

Admittedly the multi-choice concept has been gaining in acceptability with our authorities, but the progress in promoting multiple providers remains too tardy. Take Delhi's electric supply. The system's glaring flaws-horrendous losses from power theft, official flaws-horrendous losses from power theft, official corruption, inefficiency, power shortages and cuts- have been evident for years, yet privatization of consumer choice is still taking its own time to materilaize.

The whole mindset calls for a change, a change from bureaucratic functioning to the concept of customer-driven services. Rhetorically put, the case goes on like this:

A bureaucratic agency is focussed on its own needs and perspectives. A customer-driven agency is focussed on customer needs and perspectives.

A bureaucratic agency sticks to routine. A customer driven agency modifies its operations in response to changing demands of its services.

A bureaucratic agency fights for its jurisdiction and power. A customer-driven agency competes for business.

A bureaucratic agency announces policies and plans. A customer-driven agency engages in two-way communication with its cusotmers in order to assess and revise its operating strategy.

A bureaucratic agency separates the work of thinking from that of doing, the former with the headquarters, the latter with the line staff. A customer-driven agency empowers front-line staff to make judgements about how to improve customer service.

A bureaucratic agency insists on following standard procedures. A customer-driven agency builds choice inot its operating systems.

A bureaucratic agency is focussed on the roles and responsibilities of its various components. A customerdriven agency is focussed on enabling the whole organization to function as a team.

Surely a strong case can be made in favour of a customer-driven agency vis-a-vis a bureaucratic one, almost an unanswerable case on theoretical grounds. Anyway the concept can become a frame of reference for most efforts to diagnose operational problems in the public sector.

Converting a bureaucratic agency into a customer driven one demands one special change: the headquarters staff works for the line staff than the other way round. Indeed the line staff becomes the headquarters staff customers, who have to be suitably serviced. This not only means much decentralization of authority, it involves a new mindset. Many of the headquarters staff, accustomed over years to determine what's good for the line staff, may well be horrified. Yet there is no way to operate a customer-driven service agency unless the management first starts treating the line staff as its valued customers. Of course, when you entrust power and resources to field staff, you also pin down their accountability and performance, coupled with swift punishment for the corrupt or inefficient.

Government functioning has not only to assume a customer-friendly mantle, it must also become more busines-like. And here, contracting out work instead of carrying out many services directly often offers the best option. More and more work to be contracted out to independent organizations, whether private or in public sector, which compete on price and quality, and get paid for their performance.

Experience in many cities around the world shows that services such as road sweeping, garbage collection and removal, road repair, even upkeep of public parks works out better and cheaper with contracting out. For example, a municipality keeping its own fleet of trucks for garbage removal could find itself a loser-higher staff salaries, more breakdowns, more trucks immobilized for repairs, let alone capital investment-compared to hiring private trucks. And it's the same with a host of similar activities. City governments faced with stiff opposition to hike in property taxes the taking greater recourse to outside contracting. Even the concerned municipal staff can form their own company, and compete for contracts with outsiders, as is being done in UK.

A maintenance company has a financial interest in improving productivity of its menial jobs. Tools are redesigned and newer methods found for doing things better. The same actually improves the dignity and working conditions of service workers. In contrast, level of productivity is usually the lowest in government employment.

Opponents of contracting out keep on harping on the corruption involved in awarding contracts and collusive supervision. But what about corruption in government purchases? And then the perennial argument about government staff getting redundant. Layoffs should surely be avoided in our conditions, yet normal attrition, coupled with retraining and reallocation can ease the problem. On top a workable VRS scheme.

Waste in government is staggering. And we cannot get at it by wading through budgets and pruning an item here or there. Even the CAG, who is supposed to keep track of how the public money is spent, can do precious little; his organization spending most of the time nit-picking and bean-counting. And our parliament, the institution that holds the nation's purse strings, is too busy with scandals' and scams to give any worthwhile attention to the functioning of government agencies.

Wastage is marbled throughout bureaucracies. It is embedded in the very way we operate. Many an employee working at half speed or barely working. Others working at tasks that aren't worth doing, following regulations that should never have been framed in the first place, filling out forms that should never have been prescribed or have been rendered largely obsolete.

The fundamental question is not too much government or too little government. It is that governments are doing poorly in providing everyday public services. Government functioning should be customer-driven and more business-like. Time to ''rethink'' government, if not ''reinvent''.