The buck stops nowhere

Nearly 3000 years ago, famed jurist and scholar Cicero coined the maxim “Salus populi suprema lex esto” – let the welfare of the people be the supreme law. For centuries, lawyers and statesmen have held that the welfare of the people supersedes the ordinary processes of law and politics.

A couple of weeks back, in yet another harrowing tragedy 44 young Pakistanis were murdered by human traffickers and thrown into the frigid depths of the Atlantic. Our Foreign Office initially reported that a migrant boat with 80 passengers, including ‘several’ Pakistanis, capsized near Morocco. The government remains as clueless to the numbers abandoning Pakistan as it chooses to remain oblivious to the factors forcing them to.

Earlier this month, a methane explosion left 12 miners trapped 4,000 feet deep in the Sanjdi coal mine near Quetta; 11 perished in the dark suffocating depths that they were made to toil in for 14 hours a day. These over 1500 unregistered mines governed by the archaic Mines Act of 1923 are a mass of harrowing serpentine pits. Like everything else concerning our lives, they are unregulated.

Self-serving legislation like the 26th Amendment and the Peca Amendment Act is deemed necessary and blithely imposed. Persistent demands to ratify the ILO Convention 176, which provides for the health and safety of mineworkers, keep falling on deaf ears. The criminal fallout saw 45 incidents, causing more than 318 deaths in the last few years in Balochistan alone. The chief inspector of mines has not prosecuted a single mine owner for criminal negligence.

One can only pause and ponder. Do those toiling in the bowels of our land stand a chance when even those in major urban areas face a daily danse macabre as they go around the grinding routines of their lives? Figures from the World Health Organization cite over 41,000 deaths annually in road accidents throughout Pakistan.

Last year, Karachi reported 9000 road accidents with rampant dumpers and accidents caused 800 fatalities and 10,000 injuries. According to the Chippa Foundation, in less than two months this year, 36 people have perished on Karachi’s gutted roads with 528 injured. These figures are compounded by the deadly spree of street crimes that have come to identify Karachi.

In 2023, over 68 people lost their lives to open sewers and manholes that are Karachi’s own deathtraps. When confronted with recent deaths including children, the mayor proclaimed that monitoring manhole covers was not his job. One cannot pretend to be the legitimate authority while refusing to assume the responsibility that his office ultimately entails. Any system only delivers when the buck stops somewhere. Here, the buck stops nowhere.

The resulting state failure is epitomised in how our ruling dispensations have conducted themselves over the decades. Our energy crisis is a case in point. The rightly maligned power purchase agreements were made ignoring the nation’s welfare. This, along with other such policy debacles has led us to the brink of economic collapse, notwithstanding the rhetoric of billions pouring in.

Last year, reduced output and shrinking demand led to Rs2.1 trillion in capacity charges. It was also the year that saw the auditor general unearth irregular payments of Rs28.24 billion in subsidies to the export-oriented sectors. This is the same office that, during the 2018 audit, had highlighted mismanagement and irregularities worth a whopping Rs5.8 trillion in 44 federal ministries.

Audacity galore, it was revealed recently that 200,000 employees of the public and corporate sectors were being bestowed with 441.5 million units of free electricity annually. This largesse, like all other exemptions to the privileged, is then evened out with mammoth bills to an already reeling and overtaxed multitude.

How can one justify the recent FBR move to purchase 1,010 vehicles for Rs6 billion with Rs3 billion paid in advance? What can one say of the minds that conjure up these excesses when our security, healthcare, education and infrastructure – our very lives are totally dependent on loans and handouts?

Apathy is the monolith that separates the power elite from our pains as they revel in their insulated island of self-gratification. Callously flitting away public money is a grossly criminal act. It becomes all the more abhorrent when juxtaposed with the poverty and the exodus of those seeking livelihood abroad at the cost of their lives.

Benito Mussolini claimed himself Italy’s sole saviour. As prime minister, he dismantled all democratic institutions. He also destroyed all political opposition by undermining the judiciary through a series of laws that transformed Italy into a totalitarian state. Having done this, he conferred upon himself the title of II Duce – Italian for ‘the leader’. It was meant to portray himself as a capable leader rather than the destructive one he was. His name remains synonymous with fascism.

In contrast, Nelson Mandela remained incarcerated for 27 years for standing up to the apartheid regime. Four years after his release in 1990, he was elected as the President of South Africa. As a sign of reverence and endearment, he was and is remembered as Tata – ‘father’ in Mandela’s native Xhosa language.

Democracy is not about self-glorification nor about perpetuating power. It is also the antithesis of shadow governments, musical chair status quo and monarchical fiefdoms. It is about legitimacy, responsibility and empathy. Our league of II Duces’, claiming to be our saviours, have created a beggared nation of fragmented selves floundering for survival. What can be a greater indictment?

Human tragedies are the fallout of unaccountable rulers ruling opaquely. How one longs to pen something which evokes pride and the zeal of nationhood; how one longs for a Tata who would allay our despair and lead us to the same.

The writer is a freelance contributor. He can be reached at:

miradnanaziz@gmail.com