The governance mess in Gilgit – Baltistan
Mustafa Kamal
For how long the tinkering of our sleazy politicians will haunt the poor people of the Gilgit – Baltistan region is anybody’s guess. The blithe of the helmsmen has put the region at the verge of decay – particularly a kind of moral decay. Corruption, bribery, nepotism, sectarian card, linguistic and ethnic affiliations are means to make anything and getting done with any illegal work in GB. Gone are the days when merit used to be a hallmark in every field. When bribery and corruption were perceived to be bad norms in the society. Now these bad norms can easily make you a celebrity.
Anybody speaking for the real issues or trying to do so in the region is a traitor in the eyes of our so-called Quirites.
Our elected leaders enjoy sitting either in assembly house of Gilgit or GB house Islamabad. The places where they don’t sit are public places, and the people with whom they feel regret sitting are the voters of their respective constituencies.
According to a recent research conducted in GB by few students of Islamabad based university, almost 60% people in GB never get a chance to interact with their elected representatives. Only 20% people said that have some sort of interaction with the GBLA members. Out of it 10% were either relatives of GBLA members or the native villagers of them.
Reading local newspapers always increases the adrenaline level. Speaker Wazir Baig was first to confess the inability of government in solving the public issues. After him we have read Amjad Hussain’s severe criticism on failure of governance in GB. The analysis is clear – PPP in GB is divided internally. Mehdi Shah holds many ministries under his own control like the Shabaz Sharif of Punjab.
The good of it is that few people are leaking out to public the information about the internal governance debacles. But the bad thing is that nobody has tendered his resignation by accepting such failures. Perhaps it is not easy to do so. The old adage – In Rome do what the Romans do is being practiced by everyone.
Completely failed governance structure is in practice in GB. The soon it ends is the better. False promises and continuous repetition of pseudo provincial setup is what the PPP has delivered for the past four years.
It is a high time to realize the perils of bad governance and its threatening implications in a region important for big powers and nurtured under tribalism, jingoism and sectarianism. Failing to realize it will put us in more alarming situations harbingering greater chaos and blood in streets.
