Endpiece
September 18, 2007
So much is happening around and so fast that people and the media seem to have forgotten that a bridge built at a cost of several billions in Karachi collapsed early this month within days of its inauguration.
The killing of thirty people in an attack on a bus of intelligence agency in the heart of the Rawalpinid cantonment, another twenty commandos by a suicide bomber in Ghazi and the refusal by militants in South Waziristan to release the over two hundred kidnapped soldiers--all after the bridge collapse-- made tremendous copy for newsmen. Who then had the time to remember that a bridge had collapsed?
When forty militants are killed in an air attack in North Waziristan, 15 soldiers are reportedly kidnapped and nineteen people killed in a suicide attack in D I Khan-again after the bridge disaster-- pursuing the bridge case and the loss of ten lives made no great copy.
When the journalists learn from official sources over 50 militants are killed in South Waziristan and seek to verify militants' claim of killing 124 troops they are left with little time to ask what happened to the promised inquiry or demand that it be made public.
When mobs in Karachi force the SHC to put off hearing in the May 12 Karachi carnage which journalist would have the time to recall that the bridge was built by a contractor that was awarded contract without open tenders?
When journalists are bamboozled and seek to find out why the intelligence chief of a foreign country waved some papers at them in the president's camp office to declare that a Pakistani's promise to a Saudi royal takes precedence over the Constitution and the Supreme Court ruling they have no time to decipher why was the bridge contract given to a state organization whose official mandate does not entitle it to build roads and bridges.
When Bin Laden with hair dyed and sparkling eyes speaks from the comfort of a room fitted with video equipment to comically accost George Bush and make fun of the US might who has the time to recall the comic advertisement by the contractor claiming that it was not responsible for the collapse.
Yet, we must not forget the bridge collapse and keep asking questions.
We must ask what are the terms of reference of the inquiry commission, who are its members and why is the inquiry not open to public whose lives were lost and money wasted?
There have been reports that the contractor built a speed breaker in the middle of the curved part for checking over speeding by heavy vehicles. If true, we must know whether a technical study was carried out if unbalanced forces unleashed by the application of brakes by heavy vehicles at a sharp bend impacted on the bridge safety.
We must know who planted a report through official news agency APP within days of the collapse laying the blame solely on the consultants and designers even before the inquiry had even started. If the official APP version of the incompetence and inexperience of the consultants is true, we must know who then hired the design engineers and consultants and why?
NAB has hauled private housing societies but is silent in this case. Uniformed officers have been exempted from NAB law. But what about uniformed officers executing civil contracts awarded by civilian departments-- can they justifiably be exempted from the the state's corruption laws and machinery?
Answers to these questions are critical for another reason also. Writing last week in this space correspondent Dildar Qazi claimed that the word 'botched' was coined after a railway bridge designed by a Scottish engineer collapsed. The engineer's last name he said was Botch.
No one would like that the word 'NELCED' coined as an expression for grotesque wrongs, criminal negligence, sheer incompetence and monumental tragedies that are hushed up and not investigated in a fair, transparent and credible manner.
The writer is a former senator belonging to the PPP. Email: drkhs-han@comsats.net.pk
The killing of thirty people in an attack on a bus of intelligence agency in the heart of the Rawalpinid cantonment, another twenty commandos by a suicide bomber in Ghazi and the refusal by militants in South Waziristan to release the over two hundred kidnapped soldiers--all after the bridge collapse-- made tremendous copy for newsmen. Who then had the time to remember that a bridge had collapsed?
When forty militants are killed in an air attack in North Waziristan, 15 soldiers are reportedly kidnapped and nineteen people killed in a suicide attack in D I Khan-again after the bridge disaster-- pursuing the bridge case and the loss of ten lives made no great copy.
When the journalists learn from official sources over 50 militants are killed in South Waziristan and seek to verify militants' claim of killing 124 troops they are left with little time to ask what happened to the promised inquiry or demand that it be made public.
When mobs in Karachi force the SHC to put off hearing in the May 12 Karachi carnage which journalist would have the time to recall that the bridge was built by a contractor that was awarded contract without open tenders?
When journalists are bamboozled and seek to find out why the intelligence chief of a foreign country waved some papers at them in the president's camp office to declare that a Pakistani's promise to a Saudi royal takes precedence over the Constitution and the Supreme Court ruling they have no time to decipher why was the bridge contract given to a state organization whose official mandate does not entitle it to build roads and bridges.
When Bin Laden with hair dyed and sparkling eyes speaks from the comfort of a room fitted with video equipment to comically accost George Bush and make fun of the US might who has the time to recall the comic advertisement by the contractor claiming that it was not responsible for the collapse.
Yet, we must not forget the bridge collapse and keep asking questions.
We must ask what are the terms of reference of the inquiry commission, who are its members and why is the inquiry not open to public whose lives were lost and money wasted?
There have been reports that the contractor built a speed breaker in the middle of the curved part for checking over speeding by heavy vehicles. If true, we must know whether a technical study was carried out if unbalanced forces unleashed by the application of brakes by heavy vehicles at a sharp bend impacted on the bridge safety.
We must know who planted a report through official news agency APP within days of the collapse laying the blame solely on the consultants and designers even before the inquiry had even started. If the official APP version of the incompetence and inexperience of the consultants is true, we must know who then hired the design engineers and consultants and why?
NAB has hauled private housing societies but is silent in this case. Uniformed officers have been exempted from NAB law. But what about uniformed officers executing civil contracts awarded by civilian departments-- can they justifiably be exempted from the the state's corruption laws and machinery?
Answers to these questions are critical for another reason also. Writing last week in this space correspondent Dildar Qazi claimed that the word 'botched' was coined after a railway bridge designed by a Scottish engineer collapsed. The engineer's last name he said was Botch.
No one would like that the word 'NELCED' coined as an expression for grotesque wrongs, criminal negligence, sheer incompetence and monumental tragedies that are hushed up and not investigated in a fair, transparent and credible manner.
The writer is a former senator belonging to the PPP. Email: drkhs-han@comsats.net.pk
