A Letter to the Prime Minister

 

Mr. Muhammad  Nawaz Sharif,

Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Your Excellency,

I was much impressed with your address to the nation and the initiatives mentioned therein. I am sure that your team of capable senior executives and experts must have worked out detailed plans taking into account all the possible and selecting the best options. I do not claim to be wiser than your team, but consider it my national duty to point out the following points that come to my mind just in case something may have escaped their meticulous attention.

1.       Chinese Mega-projects: In finalizing the various ambitious megaprojects with the Chinese government such as the highways, railways, mass-transit, power and other projects we should ensure that Pakistani consultants, engineers and contractors get a substantial participation at all stages of the projects. This will help our local talent to acquire the technical know-how and continue similar work in all areas in Pakistan in future independently while maintaining the same quality. This will also help in the future maintenance of the projects. You may be aware that a major reason not being able to fully utilize the installed power capacity in Pakistan is that the power plants are dependent on foreign experts for annual maintenance and breakdown services. I would also suggest that our Chinese friends be persuaded to carry out as much manufacturing, fabrication and assembly of the hardware in Pakistan as possible.

 

2.       Negotiations with Taliban: This topic has been discussed extensively in press, television and drawing rooms, but there seems to be no agreement on the strategy. I think that we should try to persuade the Taliban that we share their dream of establishing an ideal Islamic state in Pakistan based on Shariah as good as or even better than in Saudi Arabia. This has been possible for the Saudis because they have great economic power due to which they can resist external pressures. If we try to implement Shariah fully at this stage, we may face the same fate as Afghanistan. So the Taliban should give us 10 years to develop our economic and military strength to such a level that we may be able to resist external pressures successfully. In the life of nations 10 years is not a long time. The Taliban may be allowed to keep their weapons, but they should be under oath not to use them against Pakistanis. They should also agree to suspend their overseas military operations and concentrate on dawah. Meanwhile, GOP should offer large numbers of scholarships to youth from Waziristan to study in schools, colleges and universities. Road works and other development projects should also be started in Waziristan.

3.       Law & order in Karachi: The only effective way of maintaining law and order in a city or town is frequent police patrol of roads and lanes. This is how the Americans changed the face of New York and Chicago which were worse than Karachi in the 1960s. Unfortunately over the past decade or so police patrols seem to have completely disappeared from the roads and lanes of Karachi. All the police and other security machinery is totally committed to guard and escort duties for ministers, high officials, foreign missions and VIP visitors. An expensive camera surveillance system for the entire city was installed but it seems to have stopped working. Perhaps a special federal security police may be formed which could be deployed for frequent and effective patrolling of the roads and lanes of troubled cities and towns and should be sufficiently disciplined and controlled so that it does not indulge in harassment of or extortion from the citizens.

Yoyr sincerely,

Muhammad Nasim

mnasim_99@ yahoo.com

Note: I would have sent this directly to the PM, but could not find his email address.