REFERENCE / COMPLAINT NO. VIII
 
Reference dated 3-8-2004 – Misuse of $ 14 Million USAID

The Reference / Complaint is based on the source incorporated as under : 

USAID's $14 Million Going Into Selected Pockets of Government Cronies

By M T Butt and Shaheen Sehbai

Issue No 92, May 16-22, 2004 | ISSN:1684-2057 | satribune.com

ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON: A $14 million USAID project launched in Pakistan to educate parliamentarians in legislative business appears to have been hijacked by Government bureaucrats, greedy good-for-nothing NGOs and colluding salaried staff of the Parliament with the real stakeholders, the elected representatives, totally out of the loop.

After an extensive investigation by the South Asia Tribune including interviews with the concerned US sponsors, managers of the program and parliamentarians, it becomes clear that more than one million dollars have already been spent, several bureaucrats and even the Speaker of the National Assembly have enjoyed junkets to Washington and none of the major players has any idea of what is going on.

Even the US sponsors are surprised at the way the project is being handled and they have no idea that some of the components of the project, like starting a “live” TV Channel called P-Span (taken from C-Span in US), at a cost of $5 million, may never be allowed by the military rulers. Yet the money will be spent and people will benefit.

It all started when USAID indicated it would provide money for promoting and strengthening democracy in Pakistan. A huge amount of $14 million was allocated. Several Government officials and sharp cookies outside, got active and quickly a network of small NGOs was identified, set up and activated to get some share of this big cake, all in the name of teaching parliamentarians how to be effective, obviously against the Generals.

So commenced the project, known as Strengthening National and Provincial Legislative Governance (SNPLG) in Pakistan, a three-year program that officially started on October 1, 2003 and will end on September 30, 2006. The project was launched in February 2004. It was said to be a participatory program and the managers claim from its inception Parliamentarians, from both the Upper and Lower House, have been involved not only in program activities but also in design, implementation and feedback.

World Vision, a Washington-based Christian charity was given the contract by USAID to give Pakistani parliamentarians lessons in democracy. World Vision described itself in these words on its web site: “ World Vision is an international Christian relief and development organization working to promote the well being of all people - especially children. In 2003, World Vision offered material, emotional, social and spiritual support to 100 million people in 99 countries.”

In response to questions by SA Tribune, World Vision said: “WV’s bid was chosen by USAID based on the innovative nature of the program and the quality of the Pakistan Legislative Strengthening Consortium (PLSC) partners who were included at the time. Some of the partners were chosen for their reputation at the national level and others because of their existing work in the four provinces. A consortium (PLSC) was formed to utilize the strengths of all the partners and to ensure that an integrated program was carried out.”

The PLSC, comprised several NGOs, most of them never heard of like TR, Irdo, CCHD or AWARD. PLSC does not even have a web site and it uses the EMail of Researchers.org. But as part of PLSC, the main job was given to Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency or PILDAT which describes itself as a non-partisan organization.

The following rationale has been given by PILDAT on its web site: “This organization will struggle to address the deficiencies in the political culture of Pakistan. PILDAT will strive to facilitate greater and more effective participation of all segments of the society in the elections, ensure transparency of candidates and continuously work to strengthen the democratic institutions. The founders of PILDAT strongly believe that the restoration of real democracy and its sustenance is extremely important for the future of the country. To pursue this broader goal, PILDAT wants to provide ample opportunities to the legislators to build their capacity and capability in the discharge of their duties and that creates an enabling social environment for democracy and democratic values to flourish.” (http://www.pildat.org)

These are formidable goals, but only when they have to be put on a web site, not in practice.

Who runs PILDAT and who are its master minds? The list will show the credentials are dubious at best and extremely doubtful in the least.

Well known lawyer and currently right hand of General Musharraf, his biggest legal trouble shooter and adviser, Senator S. M. Zafar is PILDAT Board of Advisers Chairman. As the man who supported and voted for the infamous Legal Framework Order (LFO), he claims in the PILDAT manifesto he is working for "real democracy" in Pakistan.

The other members of PILDAT Board include: Right wing Journalist Mujib-ur-Rehman Shami, Gallop Pollster and pro-Jamaat Dr. Ijaz Shafi Gilani, retired politician Muhammad Haneef Ramay, five prominent Pakistanis living overseas who may have been roped in because of the USAID money or its name. These include Lord Nazeer Ahmed of UK, Dr. Zahid H. Bukhari, a PhD in Political Science from the University of Connecticut, Mr. Mohammad Sarwar, a member of the British House of Commons from Glasgow, Mr. Khalid Mahmood, also a British Parliamentarian of Pakistani origin from Birmingham, and Dr. Donya Aziz, MNA, a medical doctor from US and part of the Human Development Foundation of Dr. Nasim Ashraf.

The only odd looking name in this list is of Prof. Dr. Hasan-Askari Rizvi a Political and Defense analyst and writer. How much of a say he has in PILDAT is not clear and what he is getting out of it is also not known.

PILDAT, giving its 'background' on its web site explains the reasons for the Failure of Democracy in Pakistan in the Past. It says there can be a number of explanations to this frequent breakdown of democratic process but some of the popularly accepted reasons are as follows:

• The elected representatives were by and large not aware of their rights and responsibilities and no effective system was evolved to make these representatives aware of their responsibilities.
• During the periods of military rule, the political process which on its own momentum develops new leadership in the country came to a halt. Whenever democracy was restored, the process did not continue long enough to allow new leadership to emerge.
• The educated classes mostly from the middle class remained largely unconcerned about the political process. They were either ignored or got disillusioned because they saw no prospects for them in the process. The political activity remained largely confined to the moneyed class or the street toughs. The educated middle class, professionals, scholars, minorities and women need to be encouraged to join the political process more actively.
• There had been no initiative taken by the citizens to monitor the performance of the elected representatives and elected bodies and to hold them accountable to their voters on the basis of their track record.

It very conveniently ignores the dominating role played by the armed forces of Pakistan in not allowing democracy to flourish. The obvious omission is enough to establish that PILDAT has some other agenda in mind and does not want to irritate the real power holders, lest its financial interests are hurt. It all smacks of opportunism and making hay while the sun shines, even in the name of democracy.

The organization is not sure of its own standing yet, as it has been put together in some hurry to achieve its goals, mainly financial. On its web site, under the title of its “Vision”, PILDAT describes its Short Term goal as: “We wish to see PILDAT establishing itself as a serious, non-partisan and respected institution strongly committed to the capability building of the elected representatives and legislatures….”

This clearly shows it does not believe it is yet a serious and respected institution.

“During this phase we see the basic institution building process completing and important databases taking firm shape setting a strong foundation for the Institute for its later activities and plans,” it adds.

In the mid-term, it says: “We wish to see PILDAT gradually spreading its emphasis from capability building to performance monitoring and legislative oversight, voters education and good governance issues as well and emerging in the process as a respected and trusted institution whose opinions are valued both at home and abroad.

“In the long-term, we would like to see PILDAT as an established respected national institution actively engaged in all its functions including the grooming and development of new political leadership in the country especially the one belonging to the segments who traditionally have lower representation in legislatures such as women, professionals, minorities and scholars….”

But what PILDAT is doing on the ground is contrary to all these stated goals and vision. It supported the LFO, accepted it as part of the Constitution even before it was passed by the Parliament and has not hesitated to work with dictators, trampling upon all democratic principles and practices.

The best PILDAT and its larger consortium, PLSC, have done so far is organizing a few seminars in Islamabad and providing free rides to America to some officials of the National Assembly and Senate secretariats. Most of these seminars have been funded by a previous UK grant by Department for International Development (DFID), which PILDAT deceptively claims to be its own performance under the USAID program.

Yet whatever it has done was kept secret from the people in whose name the whole game is being played. The Opposition parties have been totally shut out and if that is what “real democracy” advocated by PILDAT means, it is a clear sign of where the $14 million of USAID will be going.

Recently a delegation of NA and Senate secretariat visited Washington and the Speaker, Choudhry Amir Hussain also dropped in after attending the IPU meeting in Mexico. When SA Tribune asked World Vision about the visit, PLSC responded with this answer: “The leader of the delegation was the Speaker of the National Assembly, who is an elected official. Others in the delegation included the Secretary of National Assembly and Secretary and Joint-Secretary of Senate. These individuals are important decision makers, crucial to the success of the program. The delegation was invited by the PLSC. The purpose of the visit was to orient the members of the delegation with the latest media and research activities related to parliamentary business such as C-Span (live television broadcast of Assembly sessions), Library of Congress (LOC) and Congressional Research Service (CRS).

“An important part of the program involved seeing at first hand democracies at work and seeing some of the administrative components that help strengthen legislators. This was also a good opportunity for the members of the delegation to meet US Congress representatives to discuss important bilateral issues.

“Regarding cost, the delegation stayed in standard hotel rooms at the Holiday Inn on Capitol Hill, and the group from the National Assembly passed through D.C. on their way to Islamabad from the Inter parliamentary Union (IPU) meetings in Mexico City. The PLSC paid for the three National Assembly delegates’ portion of their plane tickets for the stopover in Washington, D.C., and paid for the full tickets for the two members of the Senate delegation who came directly from Pakistan.”

Much was done for the officials. But they refused to discuss the purpose of their visit with the Press in Washington saying they had come to attend a conference.

Even a PPP Senator, Khawaja Akbar who was also visiting Washington later told SA Tribune: "It does not seem to be a participatory process. Parliamentarians (belonging to Opposition parties) who are also key stakeholders in this project have been never briefed about this project neither by the Government nor by USAID. I was unaware and was not invited to the Project launch held in February in Islamabad. It is a false claim that parliamentarians have been involved in design and implementation.

“I am supportive to the overall mission of the project but there is a perception among some parliamentarians that USAID and DFID have been funding such initiatives to watch/monitor parliamentarians' activities -- with an assistance from some handpicked government-NGOs (GNGOs) in Pakistan which do not seems to have capacity or experience to implement such a project. There is also a perception that there was no transparency for Call, Selection, and Evaluation of the implementing NGOs.”

The spokesman of the PPP in the Upper House, Senator Farhatullah Babar, had a more direct response. When questioned by SA Tribune, Babar said: "In the participatory program of SNPLG the Parliamentarians are invited only to activities like seminars, discussions and briefing sessions on various issues. I am not aware of invitation to any PPP member to assist in the designing and feed back aspects of the program which are no less important…There is no direct interaction of the project coordinators/managers with the parliamentarians and the selection is left to the Chairman/Speaker."

The most controversial and mysterious part of the $14 million project is P-Span, the $5 million TV channel which is supposed to telecast the proceedings of the NA and Senate live to the Pakistani people. The USAID has been made to believe that it is a serious possibility. An application has been made to Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) and an answer is awaited. A well known US NGO, IFES, will do the portion of P-Span for World Vision, if the Government of Pakistan permits it.

Now anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of the Pakistani scene would know that the military government would never in its life allow a live telecast of the proceedings. They do not even allow recorded and edited proceedings on TV. Though the Speaker has the authority to allow cameras inside the House, he has never allowed any private channel to cover any major parliamentary event. The inaugural address of General Musharraf was covered only by PTV and after a lot of precautions had been taken to censor out protesting Opposition voices. No pictures of the protest were shown.

So it is intriguing how have these unknown NGOs fooled the USAID to make them believe P-Span would become a reality and USAID would be providing hardware and $5 million for the channel.

SA Tribune put these questions to World Vision on the subject:

Q: Pakistan TV is fully government controlled and only is used for Government propaganda. Will P-Span be under PTV control or regulations and will it be used for official propaganda as well?

A: The fact that P-Span is live means that there will be no editorial comment. The whole idea of having a live channel is to give the people access to Parliamentary proceedings. While there may be some grandstanding, all members of Parliament, including the opposition, will be able to express their views.

Q: Who has named the proposed TV Channel for Parliamentary proceedings as P-Span, on lines of C-Span?

A: As part of our proposal, it was suggested that under this particular project a parliamentary channel for the Pakistani Parliament would be established similar to C-Span. The name of P-Span was just a suggestion which may, at a later date, be changed based on public opinion.

Q: Has Government approval/permission been obtained to set up P-Span and whether it has been agreed that proceedings of Pakistani Parliament would be shown live on P-Span.?

A: The application for approval to run P-Span is pending at the moment with Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA). Members of the National Assembly have expressed enthusiasm for the concept of running a live Parliamentary Channel.

Q: Who will pay the recurring expenses of P-Span and other project programs after the USAID $14 million funding is exhausted?

A: In some countries Parliament charges TV stations for the privilege of broadcasting the proceedings of Parliament. In other situations, broadcasting is paid for via advertisements. In the case of P-Span the question of sustainability is yet to be determined during this course of the project implementation. The best method will be determined based on the Pakistani context.

The fact that Parliamentarians, and specially Opposition MPs, have not been included in the whole project is one indicator where the project is going. In a few weeks from now, a 30-member Pakistani Parliamentary delegation will be invited by PLSC to tour US, but no one has yet been told about it. Secret selections, it is learnt, have been completed.

The SA Tribune asked World Vision about it and the response came from PLSC.

Q: Has a 30-member Parliamentary delegation been invited to visit US in July? If so have any members of Parliament, including Opposition members been informed, consulted or included in the delegation? Who has given final shape to the delegation and what is the guarantee that the visit will not be used to provide a free junket to friends and family?

A: Part of the project design involves study tours to the US and other countries including the United Kingdom and Australia. A 27-member delegation will be invited on a study tour in July or September to the US. The selection process is based on the actual performance of legislators, and is across all party lines. Gender balance has been taken into consideration with 30% of the participants being women. PLSC will approve the final list of candidates after consultation with legislative stakeholders. In addition to the rigorous selection criteria, the program that is being designed is not only a busy one, but will demand a high level of engagement from the legislators. This study tour is definitely not “a junket for friends and family.”

High sounding phrases and terminology like “performance of legislators”, “stakeholders”, “rigorous selection criteria”, “high level of engagement”, all provide the required cover to pick up pliant pro-government people who need to be compensated for their support on one government bill or another. No one believes the 'performance' means speaking out against an unconstitutional and illegal law to kill or curb democracy.

World Vision was asked to send to SA Tribune the names of all the Parliamentarians who had been involved with the project so far, as repeatedly the project managers had been claiming that MPs were associated with it.

The response came from PLSC Executive, Communication Manager Tariq Junaid, who in an E-Mail said this: (Pl note the mistakes in the message as it is being reproduced unedited):

“In all Pakistan Legislative Strengthening Consortium (PLSC) activities including: legislative training workshops, briefings, seminars and current affairs TV programs that we have carried out so far, in the national and four provincial capitals, legislators from all the political parties have participated. Both Opposition and Government parties have shown a lot of interest in the activities we have carried out to date. These Legislators includes Mr. Shah Mahmood Qureshi (PPPP), Samia Raheel Qazi (MMA) and Mr Naveed Qamar (PPPP). From the Government side there has been National and Provincial Assembly Speakers, the Foreign Minister and other Ministers.

“To include all of the parliamentarians that we have had involvement with, as part of this program, would be a major task and I can't see the benefit of supplying such list. However, if the information provided above is not sufficient please contact me and I will supply you with further information.”

SA Tribune called Mr. Junaid for further clarifications. He was asked whether the project was “educating” only the powerless politicians or has it any plan to educate the real power holders, the Generals, who do not allow parliamentarians to exercise power. Have you invited any General to your training program to show them how to let democracy work?

And what about the third pillar of the Parliament -- The Presidency. These 14 million dollars will all go to teach powerless MPs how to become effective but not a dollar is going to an equal and the most powerful part of the Parliament. It is the Presidency which needs to be taught some lessons in democracy.

Mr Junaid in his recorded response said no General had been invited as this program was only to educate the parliamentarians. “This is not the first program of this kind. Asia Foundation ran a 10-year program from 1985 to 1995. This time USAID wants them to provide Parliamentarians the tools to play their role effectively.”

Asked why the Parliament was not effective. Was it because the MPs were inexperienced or because the Generals had not given them any powers, Mr Junaid admitted it was both. “I think it is both basically because they have not played their role as they should have.”

Q: You are then not educating the Generals to do away with powers in a democracy but you are teaching Parliamentarians to snatch these powers from the generals, is this right?

A: Sir, sir who are we to teach them to grab power. We are just trying to tell them how they can be effective.

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