Kabaddi World Cup 2013: Indian wrestlers edge out Pakistan in final

Pakistan official says the event was a step towards sports diplomacy. PHOTO: AFP/FILE

KARACHI: 

As Pakistan lost to India in the Kabaddi World Cup 2013 final at the Guru Nanak Stadium in Ludhiana on Saturday, Pakistan’s representative and Punjab Minister for Sports and Education Rana Mashood Ahmed Khan said the event was a step towards sports diplomacy.

“We want to improve relations through sports. With this event, we want to say that dialogue and not war is the way to progress,” he said.

All through the tournament Pakistani wrestlers enjoyed a winning-streak – until the final game. They mauled the US 51-33 in the semi-final and won all of their five Pool B matches to earn a place as a top team against India.

The Indians had a golden run, capping it off with a win against Pakistan and lifting the World Cup for the fourth time.

Pakistan were slotted with England, Canada, Denmark, Scotland and Sierra Leone in their group, while India competed their pool matches with the US, Iran, Kenya, Argentina and Spain in group A.

“It was a very well-contested match,” Khan told The Express Tribune from Ludhiana. “Our team performed really well, but there was a certain pressure from the home-crowd.”

Pakistan lost the final to India 45-41, according to Khan.

“We are satisfied with the performance. In fact with the way Pakistan played people commented that we can win the World Cup next year. So far our team showed commitment, hard work and dedication towards the sport,” he said.

On verge of failure: Textile City leaking cash and resources

Estimated cost of the textile city in 2009 was around Rs15 billion. PHOTO: FILE

KARACHI: 

Time management is undoubtedly the most important aspect of any successful project because a very common cause of soaring project budgets is the inability to follow set timelines.

Pakistan Textile City Limited at Port Qasim is a classic example of missing the schedules. The project, conceived in 2003 with the capacity to export textile goods worth $2 billion per annum and create 80,000 jobs for the unemployed youth of Karachi, has so far neither been able to complete infrastructure facilities nor sell plots to prospective textile entrepreneurs.

Interestingly enough, this city was planned as a pilot project and after its completion 20 more such cities were to be developed across the country. In the meantime, the infrastructure cost has increased so rapidly that investors are questioning the viability of even the pilot project.

Something must be done before the project becomes unmanageable forcing the government to abandon the business enterprise and declaring it a costly futile exercise as there is no doubt that the project is leaking cash, time and resources at a significant speed.

It is time to identify budgets that have been exceeded, deadlines that have been missed and issues that remain unresolved. In order to find out root causes of the failure, all essential project records should be reviewed on a priority basis.

A team of professionals under a hard task master must be appointed which should collect the evidence and after a complete audit prepare a comprehensive report. This report should be presented to the board with proposals for immediate measures to make the project feasible enough for the government, which is already having problems maintaining a number of white elephants.

In March 2009, Zaheer Hussain, the then CEO of Pakistan Textile City, in a press briefing agreed that paucity of funds and inconsistency in policies due to frequent changes in the board of directors of the city had not only resulted in delay but also caused cost escalation.

Estimated cost of the textile city then was around Rs15 billion, which he hinted might increase considerably in case time was wasted further.

Another important aspect of any business venture is to identify profit margins and accordingly fix the price of the product. Pricing a product usually involves considering certain key factors, including pinpointing target customer, tracking how much competitors are charging and understanding the relationship between the facilities offered and the price fixed.

Unfortunately, the textile city lacked the business acumen and financial management as such failed to attract prospective entrepreneurs.

The most noticeable hesitation from the customers to go for a piece of land in this project is of course the price and the payment structure. The land purchased at the rate of Rs1 million per acre from Port Qasim has been priced at a whopping Rs21 million per acre.

Moreover, it offers payment in four equal installments and the construction of plant and factory will be allowed only after the final payment has been made – that too at a time when the existing textile plants are working at 60% capacity.

On the contrary, National Industrial Parks Development and Management Company is offering plots at Rs1.25 million per acre at its Bin Qasim Industrial Park (BQIP) and entrepreneurs can start construction of their plant after paying 70% of the cost.

As a result, BQIP managed to attract $150 million foreign direct investment from Yamaha Motor, which is all set to establish a motorcycle plant on a 50-acre plot.

More foreign companies are following suit, which proves that Karachi has all the potential to attract foreign investors.

Moreover, the government’s initiative to establish special economic zones to facilitate foreign entrepreneurs has given impetus to its efforts to bring FDI in Karachi. The textile city is losing a golden opportunity.

The textile city, country’s first WTO and ISO-14001 compliant, was planned as an exclusive industrial estate dedicated to value-added textile products, with separate clusters for weaving, denim, bed linen, knitwear, towel, apparel, dyeing and zips, button, thread packaging and support industries.

Proud compatriots: Pakistani tech stars make it big in Silicon Valley

Before going public through the IPO, FireEye raised $100 million in funding from companies like Sequoia Capital, Goldman Sachs, Juniper Networks, Silicon Valley Bank and others. DESIGN: TALHA KHAN

DUBAI: 

It’s always amazing to see how brown lads from the sub-continent outdo other nations in the field of technology, but they seldom take their net worth all the way close to $450 million.

One such name is Ashar Aziz, who recently won his cyber security firm, FireEye, an initial public offering (IPO) at Nasdaq stock exchange worth $304 million. Aziz also owns about 10.91 million shares in a California-based security company, Milipitas, which makes up almost 9.3% stake in the firm worth about $392 million.

Aziz’s company, FireEye, has a virtualisation engine that shields its clients’ infrastructure from attacks sourced from the web and email, all through its dynamic virtual cloud – analysing and providing intelligence on incoming data in real-time. Before going public through the IPO, FireEye raised $100 million in funding from companies like Sequoia Capital, Goldman Sachs, Juniper Networks, Silicon Valley Bank and others.

Another proud Pakistani in the Silicon Valley is Riaz Haq, who was one of the six engineers who comprised the award winning Intel 80386 CPU design team. For his services to the computing industry, specifically the 80386 family of Intel processors, he was recognised as the Person of the Year by PC Magazine, apart from being on the faculty of Rutgers University and NED University and co-founding DynArray Corp.

Another man who’s taken the tech community by surprise is a Pakistani American, Rayid Ghani, the chief scientist who helped Obama elect for the second time, through his research on immensely large sets of data that belonged to Obama’s supporters on the internet, and took his election campaign 10 folds deeper than his supporters’ influence.

Ghani used to work for Accenture before joining Obama’s campaign and had a vast experience of working in the big data field and forecasting consumer behaviour. He used his experience to mine and study meaningful patterns out of Obama’s supporters’ data online and used their presence to advertise Obama’s campaign through means of micro targeting.

Another thriving venture from a Pakistani American is Streetline, which comes from Zia Yousuf, formerly, the executive vice president at SAP AG. Streetline has come up with tailored smartphone applications that help drivers locate vacant parking slots in crowded parking lots at universities, airports, garages or even private parking providers.

The company has raised $65 million in capital so far and is doing exceptionally well, having reached nine-digit figures for its total parking events completed already.

All these men together have served the green flag well and deserve to be on this list I’ve composed. There’s a browner enigma that sticks out of the nation that Pakistan is, and a lot more that is seen in the Silicon Valley. I’ll keep that for another column.

The writer runs a software company in Dubai

South Africa buries "greatest son" Mandela

The coffin of South African former president Nelson Mandela is escorted as it arrives for the funeral ceremony in Qunu on December 15, 2013. PHOTO: AFP

QUNU: South Africa held a state funeral for Nelson Mandela on Sunday, closing one chapter in its history and opening another in which the multi-racial democracy he founded will have to discover if it can thrive without its central pillar.

The Nobel peace laureate, who was held in apartheid prisons for 27 years before emerging to preach forgiveness and reconciliation, was honoured with ceremonies that mixed military pomp with the traditional rites of his Xhosa abaThembu clan.

The funeral drew 4,500 guests, from relatives and South African leaders to Britain’s Prince Charles, American civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson and talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

“The person who is lying here is South Africa’s greatest son,” Cyril Ramaphosa, deputy leader of South Africa’s ruling ANC party who was acting as one of the masters of ceremonies, said as the service got under way.

Fellow anti-apartheid veteran Archbishop Desmond Tutu was also among those who arrived shortly after dawn at a vast, domed tent erected in a field near Mandela’s home, having resolved a last-minute mix-up over his invitation.

As Mandela’s flag-draped coffin was borne from the house on a gun-carriage, a battery of cannons positioned on the hillside fired a 21-gun salute, sending booms echoing across the sun-drenched valley.

The coffin was followed into the huge tent, decked out inside in black, by Mandela’s grandson and heir, Mandla, and South African President Jacob Zuma.

It was then placed on black and white Nguni cattle skins in front of a ring of 95 candles as the service started with a choir singing Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, the evocative national anthem adopted after the end of apartheid in 1994.

Mandela died in Johannesburg on December 5 aged 95, plunging his 53 million countrymen and millions more around the world into mourning, and triggering more than a week of official memorials to the nation’s first black president.

As many as 100,000 people paid their respects in person at his lying in state at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, where he had been inaugurated as president, an event that brought the curtain down on more than three centuries of white domination.

When his body arrived on Saturday at his ancestral home in Qunu, 700 km south of Johannesburg, it was greeted by ululating locals overjoyed that Madiba, the clan name by which he was affectionately known, had “come home”.

“After his long life and illness he can now rest,” said grandmother Victoria Ntsingo, as military helicopters escorting the funeral cortege clattered overhead. “His work is done.”

“Don’t call me”

Mandela served just one term as leader of Africa’s biggest and most sophisticated economy, and formally withdrew from public life in 2004, famously telling reporters at the end of a farewell news conference: “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

His last appearance in public was at the 2010 World Cup final in Johannesburg’s Soccer City stadium, waving to fans from the back of a golf cart. Yet such was his influence as the architect two decades ago of the historic reconciliation between blacks and whites that his passing has left a gaping hole in the heart of South Africa.

With an eye on elections in five months, the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the 101-year-old former liberation movement Mandela once led, has seized on his death as a chance to shore up popularity that is ebbing even in its black support base.

The strategy has not been without its risks, not least because it has highlighted the gulf in stature between South Africa’s first black president and its fourth, the scandal-plagued Zuma.

It backfired spectacularly at a mass Mandela memorial at Soccer City on Tuesday when Zuma, under fire for a $21 million security upgrade to his private home, was booed and jeered in front of world leaders including US President Barack Obama.

But barring an upset next year, Zuma looks set for another five years in office, during which he will have to address an economy struggling to shake off a 2009 recession and the fragmentation of a vital ANC alliance forged with the unions in the common struggle against apartheid.

With unemployment at 25 percent and racial inequality still painfully evident – the average white household earns six times more than the average black one – pressure for radical economic transformation is only likely to increase.

Against that backdrop, the party is desperate for strong and decisive leaders to guide South Africa through the myriad complexities of the 21st century global economy and allowing it to claim what it believes is its rightful place at the world’s top table.

Both inside and outside the party, there are doubts whether Zuma, a polygamous Zulu traditionalist with no formal education, is the right man for the job.

“We need to raise the level of leadership,” former president Thabo Mbeki, who was unceremoniously ousted by Zuma as ANC leader six years ago, said in eulogies to Mandela last week.”The transformation of South Africa is a very difficult task, I think in many respects more difficult than the struggle to end the system of apartheid.”

Too many cooks: How to turn around PIA prior to privatisation

Currently, barely two-thirds of the PIA aircraft fleet is airworthy. Engineering and maintenance needs to be transformed to maximise aircraft airworthiness. This can be done through appointing a result-oriented official – for whom setting and monitoring goals and measuring results is a way of life. PHOTO:FILE

KARACHI: 

Recently, several columnists and self-proclaimed analysts have highlighted a blindingly obvious status quo – the widening gap between the losses of State-owned Enterprises (SOE) such as PIA and the dwindling revenues of the national exchequer.

Sadly, none have attempted to address or remotely propose viable solutions. However, PIA represents an ideal and lucrative opportunity for a successful turnaround. For many years, the national carrier’s flight operations and load factor have been decreasing, while global passenger traffic has been on the rise. A transformational turnaround is not difficult in the presence of such a worthwhile opportunity.

It only requires a few simple actions.

For the sceptics of a turnaround prior to privatisation, allow me to put ‘a few simple actions’ into perspective by drawing on a few similarities between today’s PIA and British Airways of 1981.

The similarities

At the time, BA was a poorly managed SOE universally perceived as an unattractive, ‘wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole’ buy prospect for investors.

It was bleeding $1 billion a year in losses (300% more than PIA’s 2012 losses) and ‘controlled’ by a multitude of politicised trade unions.

The initials BA were said to signify ‘Bloody Awful’. At the time, PIA’s initials were, and still are today, said to signify ‘Perhaps I’ll Arrive’ or ‘Please Inform Allah’.

One particularly penetrating statement from a renowned frequent BA flyer summed up its service at the time. “The attitude was that the customer was an irritating part of the process”. This comment will ring alarm bells of in people like me who refuse to travel with any other airline but PIA.

Another similarity was BAs ‘crown jewels’, like PIA,  being its landing slots at Heathrow and other major international airports – some are today valued between $25-30 million each.

The BA turnaround only required a few simple actions. The first and most important step was the appointment of an international calibre, hands-on CEO or corporate turnaround ‘doctor’. In 1981, Margaret Thatcher appointed Sir John King with the single mission of preparing it for privatisation. King slashed operational costs, reduced aircraft-employee ratio, groomed up service, fine-tuned the route structure, and hired Saatchi & Saatchi to rebrand BA as “The World’s Favourite Airline.” The corporate turnaround was as rapid as it was profoundly transformational.

By 1987, BA was the most profitable airline in the world. When privatised in 1987 via a public share offering, demand exceeded supply by 11 times.

Similarly, immediate steps for any new CEO at PIA are simple and obvious.

Competent heads need to be appointed in each department. In addition, new country heads need to be placed, all superfluous staff posted overseas needs to be recalled and all offices where PIA does not have landing slots need to be shutdown.

The international and domestic routes need to be expanded to generate economies of scale and build a sustainable airline.

Contracts and purchasing policies need to be reviewed. Suffice to say that corruption needs to be reduced. The cost of financing needs to go down because, without it, a timely corporate turnaround will prove difficult.

PIA Investments Limited, incorporated in 1977, should be immediately dissolved and all its assets sold to finance the corporate turnaround. The Roosevelt and Scribe hotels alone have a net book value of $584.8 million, according to PIA’s 2012 annual report, but contribute nothing to profits.

Currently, barely two-thirds of the PIA aircraft fleet is airworthy. Engineering and Maintenance needs to be transformed to maximise aircraft airworthiness. This can be done through appointing a result-oriented official – for whom setting and monitoring goals and measuring results is a way of life.

Perhaps, one of our many retired PAF officers currently camouflaging themselves as ‘defence analysts’ may wish to volunteer their expertise.

Other medium-term goals

In addition, PIA’s aircraft-employee ratio stands at over 500. This needs to be reduced to near the international standard of 130-150. However, for obvious political sensitivities and to enable other changes to be implemented, this should be a low-priority, medium term goal. However, some of the immediate steps should include recalling all superfluous staff from overseas operations, removing all political appointees, getting rid of ‘ghost’ employees, and natural reduction through a holistic hiring-freeze.

A transformational turnaround only requires a few simple steps to rapidly deliver PIA to good health and profitability and a successful privatisation. It may seem a daunting task but for experienced corporate turnaround ‘doctors’, its child’s play.

The writer is a Sloan Fellow from the London Business School and a former Spanish representative on the $100+ billion Eurofighter

Aircraft lease: ECC refuses bidder’s demand for sovereign guarantee

Committee also turns down request for tax exemption. DESIGN: TALHA KHAN

ISLAMABAD: 

The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) has turned down a bidder’s demand to provide sovereign guarantee worth millions of dollars to provide five aircraft on lease, saying that it was against bid requirements. The ECC also refused to cave to a demand for tax exemptions.

Sources said that the ECC, in its meeting held on December 3, observed that the proposed acquisition of five A-320 aircraft was in order and all formalities were completed.

However, it noted that the bidder’s reported requirement of a sovereign guarantee for the proposed lease was not in order as it was not in accordance with the terms and conditions. The meeting also observed that, for the acquisition of the remaining five aircrafts preferably not older than 2007, a second round of advertisement should be urgently initiated, in accordance with the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules.

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Board of Directors, in its 325th meeting, approved the induction of ten A320/A319 aircraft, costing $64.8 million including taxes ($30 million without taxes). PIA was of the view that it was not liable to pay taxes on leased aircraft.

It was stated in the meeting that in addition to the security deposits, the lessors have asked for government guarantees of up to $65 million as part of lease obligations mainly for delivery conditions. It was pointed out that a credit note of $15 million was available with Airbus which could only be used for pro rata reduction in monthly lease rental over the term.

As for the payment of taxes on the leased aircraft, it was observed that total exemption was not possible because such exemptions from duty were required to be across the board. Temporary import also entails import duty.

The committee also believed that PIA needed to negotiate with existing lessors for an extension of the wet lease of its aircrafts so that operations were not negatively affected.

The ECC approved acquisition of five narrow body A320-200 aircraft on lease by PIA subject to the condition that the Finance Division would not provide any sovereign guarantee to the lessors for the proposed deal.

The ECC also directed PIA to undertake another round of bidding for acquiring five narrow body aircraft on lease, for delivery by June 15, 2014, while following the PPRA rules in letter and spirit.

The meeting was informed that the government had allocated an amount of Rs16 billion as cash support for PIA which was to be released as per approval by ECC, which in its meeting held on July 12, 2013, had approved release of Rs12.7 billion while an amount of Rs3.3 billion against dry lease of aircraft was pending.

The meeting was further informed that PIA floated a tender for the dry lease of ten narrow body aircraft in August 2013 as per PPRA rules. In response, five leasing companies offered a total of 25 aircraft which were evaluated as per the criteria given in the tender document.

Approval of the ECC was then solicited for the proposals which included disbursement of $30 million for the induction of ten narrow body aircraft.

The PIA also asked the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) to release the aircraft upon arrival pending payment till the resolution of issues over taxes between PIA and FBR was sought.

The meeting observed that the acquisition of the A-319 aircraft would not be viable and should be dropped

Work for the govt: A search on for the chief economist

Panel conducts interviews of five out of six shortlisted candidates. CREATIVE COMMONS

ISLAMABAD: 

The government has started conducting interviews as it looks to finalise the chief economist of Pakistan. The post has been vacant for the past two and half years, and now the government faces the challenge to hire an expert economist to strengthen a weakened team at the Planning Commission (PC).

An advertisement for the vacancy was posted by the government a few months ago. A selection panel has conducted interviews of five out of six shortlisted candidates who applied for the post. According to an official of the PC, the interview process will only be completed once the sixth applicant, Dr Saeed Ahmad Khan, returns to the country.

Dr Saeed Ahmad Khan is currently employed in the State Bank of Pakistan where he heads the agriculture department. Once the process is completed, the Ministry of Planning and Development will send a panel consisting of three candidates to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for approval.

The selection panel is chaired by Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal. It comprises Secretary Planning Hasan Nawaz Tarar, an additional secretary from the Establishment Division, Joint Chief Economist (JCE) of the PC Rizwan Bashir and Vice Chancellor-designate of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics Dr Asad Zaman.

The interviewed applicants include Dr Talat Anwar, senior research fellow at Comsats Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) Islamabad, Dr Khalid Riaz, head of department of management sciences also at CIIT, Dr Qazi Masood, serving at the department of management of Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Dr Sajjad Akhtar, a consultant, and Ali Bat Khan, the chief of International Trade and Finance in the PC.

While the list of candidates was a good one, it did not reflect the best available in the country, said an official of the Ministry of Planning.

PC former deputy chairman Dr Nadeemul Haque, in his recent article, ‘Why are appointments in Pakistan so badly made’ explains that the interviews for such posts are conducted by federal secretaries and several able professionals hesitate to apply, fearing ‘poor treatment’. Their hesitance is also due to the interview process being conducted by, what they call, non-professionals with the decision taking several months, only to learn that a retired bureaucrat was preferred for the job.

The position of chief economist has been vacant since July 2011 with Dr Jafer Qamar being the last one to hold the post. Qamar resigned due to alienation from domestic economic issues. Haque has made several attempts to hire a chief economist since then but could not find a suitable candidate.

In his last attempt, he tried to hire Dr Khalid Riaz, who has a PhD in agriculture, but was unable to due to objections over bypassing the laid down procedures.

Historically, the post of the chief economist is a 22-grade position for the economist group of civil servants. However, authorities are not interested in appointing any of the current senior officials. According to analysts, the chief economist post requires a diversified experience in areas of economics, trade, poverty, inflation, fiscal and monetary policy making. The job becomes more challenging when the country is facing a crisis, and a mistake in the appointment could damage policy making.

The chief economist is assisted by two joint chief economists (JCE) in developing crucial economic policies. The JCE positions are currently filled to accommodate people rather than professional economists.

Rizwan Bashir, a 20-grade officer from the District Management Group, was serving as JCE Operations whereas the position belongs to the economist group. The JCE operation is responsible for preparing an annual programme, public investment authorisation (public sector development programme) and international trade and finance.

The acting charge of JCE Macro is assigned to Samiullah, who belongs to the economist group and is responsible to look after the macroeconomic section, money, prices and fiscal policy and poverty alleviation section.

The commission faces another problem of being sidelined by the finance ministry, especially during the signing of the International Monetary Fund programme which has a direct bearing on the country’s economic growth, according to sources.