Former finance minister Dr Mubashar Hassan, a close confidant of late premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as well as his cabinet member, on Tuesday presented a new social contract for Pakistan and said it could pull the country out of the deteriorating state it was in.
“The current system has failed to deliver as the condition of the masses has not improved a bit in the past 69 years since the creation of this country. The gap between the rich and the poor has widened significantly which needs to be bridged for the country’s progress,” he said while addressing a press conference here.
Dr Hassan is held in high esteem by leaders of all political parties since it was his residence in Lahore where Zulfikar Ali Bhutto founded the country’s first-ever political group, Pakistan People’s Party, on November 30, 1967.
According to Dr Hassan, there is a need for limiting the powers of the federation and transferring them to the provinces and local governments to empower the masses at the local level. In his new social contract, he also puts forward the demand for widening the mandate of the Council of Common Interest (CCI) to create harmony among the provinces.
Speaking to the media, veteran journalist and human rights activist IA Rehman said that “welfare states born when the people of a country are empowered and it can also lead to an efficient criminal justice system”. He said that they had deliberated for more than a year and came to the conclusion that Pakistan definitely needed a new social contract.
“Our judicial system is not providing justice to the people and the condition of human rights is also declining alarmingly,” Rehman said, adding that the 18th amendment had not been implemented in its true spirit in the country as most of the powers were still with the federation. “The mines of Baluchistan are still occupied by the federation and the people of Balochistan do not get any share from their own resources.”
Dr Mubashar Hassan demanded that the community should be made a party to the justice delivery system at local levels. He also emphasised to hand over the policing at local and village level to the citizen’s government. “I have worked closely with Bhutto and realised at the later stage that the affairs of government were being run by the establishment and bureaucracy while the political leadership was on the back burner,” he added.
Noted historian Hassan Jafar Zaidi, columnists Dr Yaqoob Bangash and Saroop Ejaz were also present on the occasion. They presented the new social contract from the platform of a group “Chaukas” (the vigilant people) and said that the participation of vigilant people was essential to implement the contract.
