Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi took a potshot at the media on August 16, 2010 expressing his horror over the fact that transparency in aid utilisation had become such an issue domestically. He said that “everyone wants transparent use of the assistance. There can be no two views. But it is more under debate over here than it is with the international community.”
Instead of trying to improve the functioning of the government and showing transparency, the minister chose to blame the media which goes to show the bankruptcy of the minister and this govenrment.
The reluctance of foreign countries coming to Pakistan’s assistance goes to show the failure of the present government machinery and the situation should be compared with the success of the Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz regime in collecting funds in record time.
But the reputation of Zardari and Gilani is such that who would like to give them money?
The international aid has been scant. The UN asked for $460 million a week which is not much and most of which would end up paying the UN salarties but even this target is not being achieve.
The Muslim countries are conspicuous by their absence, except for Saudi Arabia. The Organization of Islamic Countries has yet to meet. The assistance from Muslim countries has been particularly inadequate making the international relief efforts look further poor.
Pakistan is also playing with the Indian $5 million offer for assistance. God knows as to why India had to offer and why it could not simply give. But Pakistan is not even accepting this offer as the FM said there were sensitivities involved in the issue because of “a different nature of relationship with it.”
When will we learn?
Filed under: Corruption, Indo Pak Relations, Pakistan | Tagged: Corruption, Floods, Human Rights, Pakistan | Leave a Comment »
